THEY
WERE NOT THE BAD OLD DAYS
1982 and again 1984, July
1985, November 1986 and July 1987
__________________________________________________
My grandchildren will never know the innocent
law-abiding world that surrounded my childhood. Before I forget, I am setting
down my impressions of a long bygone age, which may be read with incredulity
and humour by one or more of them.
The slums of London were my playground. Born a
month before the 1914 war broke out, into a house owned by the LNER (London North Eastern
Railway) just behind Marylebone
Station.
The house had two rooms on each floor including a
basement, eight in all. A small back yard with an outside lavatory and a wash house
with a stone copper. One tap in the yard, the sole supply for the whole house. The
basement rooms were dark, and one had a coal range. There was a round metal
plate covering a hole on the pavement where coal was tipped into a cellar at 1s/3d
per cwt. My mother (Louisa Burnett, b.1891) spent her life keeping that old
range shining and alight. It meant warmth and comfort, a kettle always boiling
on the hob.
The earliest recollection I have is of scribbling
on postcards for a soldier daddy (Charles Roberts b.1892, St. Giles, London). The
build up to his homecoming was a bit too much. I was very disappointed in the
drab little man sitting on the bed in his underclothes. How wrong can you be? In
fact he was a lonely somewhat shy man, extremely intelligent, and I owe him a
very great deal.
A word here about my grandparent and parents. My
paternal grandfather Charles Henry Roberts was born in Port Jackson[1],
Australia, descendant of a convict I don’t doubt, a fact which intrigued my
grandsons when part of my family emigrated there in the seventies. He lived
alone in the house where I grew up, visiting my grandmother Sarah Sofia (née
Stearn, b. 26.4.1856 in Chichester, Sussex) in the big house where she was
cook-housekeeper[2],
puffing his pipe by the range fire, saying not a word the whole evening. I
remember too that lovely old kitchen. He died soon after I was born[3].
Such a strange life. My father has little or no recollections of him. But in
later years I remember my grandmother saying she missed him; my little paternal
grandmother a greater influence in my life than my mother. I was indeed lost
and forlorn when she died soon after my 14th birthday[4];
the first shock and grief of my life. Theirs must have been a stormy marriage. Grandmother
turned catholic when she was 26, causing arguments over the education of my
father. A baby sister (Violet) was found dead in the pram, suffocated by a
bonnet ribbon across the mouth. In later years I often saw my father peering
anxiously into the pram of my own babies, having warned me to take great care.
I had no regard for fussy bonnets anyway.
Next to the Royal Academy of Music in Marylebone
road there stood a lovely old ivy covered house, with a high walled garden,
‘Marylebone Lodge’, occupied by a wealthy bachelor gentleman Mr Brown[5].
Here grandmother held sway; she was the cook-housekeeper. It was my father’s
home, but he was often sent away to school. There were many Aunts and Uncles. He
went to school at Brighton under the care of my Great Aunt Fan[6]
who ran a pub. I remember her and many Indian Army cousins resplendent in their
uniforms.
Another sister, Clara[7]
ran the Newmarket Inn, just outside Brighton. Still there...
I remember staying once with grandmother and my
sister. Why was she so heartbroken at the death of Sister Clara’s husband Sam?
Must be a story there somewhere…
As a toddler I vaguely remember ‘The Lodge’ after
all the fuss had died down. My mother[8]
had been parlour-maid there. Outraged by the idea of their marriage,
grandmother withdrew all plans for my father’s further education (including
Edinburgh University) and threw him out. They had to marry secretly in a
Registry Office[9],
as my grandmother would have stopped the marriage, he being under 21[10].
I was born about 13 months after, so it was no shotgun wedding. Romantic story?
Yes! But is all truly lost for love. ‘Lost’ being the operative work. Lost to
the world a superior brain without further education. Stifled by the need to
provide. A wife with little education, no companionship there, no
understanding. A good mother, housekeeper and cook. Yes, a good parlourmaid.
Escape!! “Your country needs you” - so off he went
and joined the army[11].
War is a wicked and cruel thing. But there you are, the human race is wicked
and cruel – all colours all shapes and sizes. But to my father it was the
happiest and most interesting period of his life. Not like the poor devils sent
to Europe, he was sent to Baghdad, Mesopotamia (now the capital of Iraq). Here
he began to learn the language, blossomed and grew in importance. Went to
India, saw Table Mountain. At 89, he could still recount these trips as clear
as ever, his tired voice taking on a new vigour.
But ask him what did yesterday, last week, last
month? He could have had a very good job in the Middle East, after the war
ended, but of course with her limitations my mother refused to go. So back home
he came to unemployment and his responsibilities. No ducking those in his
upright soul (he was not like the wishy-washy lot we breed nowadays). Although
the marriage was totally incompatible, mother was a worthy woman.
Before I get carried away too far, we should look
at the maternal grandparents. Grandfather (Thomas James Burnett) was brought up
spoilt by a bevy of sisters. His father was a Scot (William Andrew Burnett, b.
1825, Ayrshire) whose family came to Lambeth where at first they kept cows. I
ask you - cows in Lambeth - its hard to believe these days. After that, they
took a pub. My great grandfather however is reputed to have gone to Australia
twice to ‘seek his fortune’. He missed it of course, but there is supposed to
be a ‘Burnett Creek’ named after him[12].
His wife was Mary Ann Roberts (b. 1835, Strood, Kent)[13].
Maternal grandmother Sarah is a shadowy figure[14].
She died when my mother was 11, the only survivor of six stillborn children. Thomas
James (Archie as he was known to all the pubs and racecourses, married again,
and the very much loved granny of my childhood (Minnie née Barton) emerges
together with the four members of the second family. The youngest, Gladys (née
Burnett, married Charles Robinson), only four years older than myself, has been
a true friend all my life.
Back to Brand Street and the constant noise of
trains, the poverty of the twenties. In these enlightened days poverty is
blamed on the social system and the government. Do-gooders rant and rave but
how much of the answer lies in ourselves. Father was unemployed for a time,
mother did ‘charring’ jobs and took in lodgers, getting up at 4:00am to do her
washing by candlelight before going to work. All neighbours in the little
street varied in their degrees of poverty. But take the extreme case - a family
living at the end house. This man had a job, but everything went into the
pawnshop Monday morning to be redeemed by Friday’s wages. Then into the pub to
get drunk all weekend. 26 children eventually, in fact the mother was still
producing at the time the eldest girl started. They had nothing on their feet,
and the backsides out of their trousers, rags for clothing. My mother tried at
first to help by giving good outgrown clothes, but these ended in the pawnshop
or the pub, never on the backs of the needy children. Surely these people
produced their own poverty by their feckless and irresponsible behaviour. God
help the taxpayer if the social security system had been working then, the
father need not have worked at all, but get drunk seven days a week instead of
only two.
My mother Louisa, armed by her thrifty Scottish
genes, made a £1 go twice as far as anyone I have ever known and could produce
a good meal out of a few oddments. Custard cream biscuits were a luxury only
for Christmas. All biscuits were sold in 7 lb tins, and inevitably on weighing
and handling produced many broken ones. That was our treat, 1 lb of broken
biscuits for 3d.
My sister and I often visited ‘The Lodge’, it must
have been very early in our lives as grandmother (Sarah) came to live with us
when I was five. The old house was pulled down and replaced by a block of flats
which are still there. So much fuss and sadness. A broken hearted old man (Mr.
Brown) pensioned off his servants, sold up his home and went to live with a
niece. A portfolio of photographs of the house I still have, but have not
looked at it in 50 years. It is stored away somewhere. What shall I do with it?
There will soon be no-one to remember.
The kitchen, with its large dresser, huge coal
range, and enormous scrubbed deal table. When Alice brought the master’s
breakfast tray down, my sister and I always ate the cut off tops of the two
boiled eggs. What a funny thing to remember in addition to a large brown and
white picture of a small girl saying to a large dog, “Can’t you talk”. As a
treat occasionally we were allowed up a winding stone staircase to the grand
holy territory above. Best I remember the music room with its grand piano. Mr
Brown made many friends among the students of the Royal Academy and they were
invited to dine and make music. Quiet as a mouse, my father was allowed to sit
in the corner. Here his great love of music was born. Many, many famous names
he can remember as students playing at the ‘Lodge’. Then vaguely I recall the
morning room and a beautiful desk. In the garden were little tombstones (sic)
for the extinct household pets, but otherwise I remember it as a damp place
with a lot of trees.
So grandmother had the two rooms on the first
floor. I remember it crammed with furniture and horrible pictures of Jesus
crowned with thorns. The sitting room was a mass of Victoriana. A corner
cupboard full of fascinating bits of china, black shiny horses on the
mantelpiece and a musical box with bells and butterflies. However the ‘piece de
resistance’ for me was the polyphone. A glass fronted cupboard that took a
large metal disc with pinpricks. You put a penny in a slot at the side and the
disc revolved to “Soldiers of the Queen” or whatever. There was a cupboard full
of discs on which the player stood. The only other one I ever saw since was in
a museum in Cape Town, 45 years on. An attendant was kind enough to insert a
coin and I was transported back all those years.
Mother and grandmother never really got on. No
wonder father kept out of the way. I did not really get to know him until I was
grown up. But that sitting room was my sanctuary. The old lady and I were very
close, but when she died, everything was ruthlessly sold. For a time I dreamed
about running away from home.
Back to those early days, and that first terrifying day at the local
church school St Paul’s. We were not allowed to play in the street at first
because the children were considered ‘rough’. Small wonder my mother was known
as ‘The Duchess of Brand Street’, neither she or my father set foot in that
little pub, but the goings on at closing time were a secret source of curiosity
to my sister and I. The independant, self-contained human being I became was
largely determined by the fact that I was a stammerer. Still I remember clearly
the first realization. Going into a little sweet shop for some ‘hundreds and
thousands’, tiny round coloured sweets, stumbling over the words, and a cross,
impatient man sending me out with a flea in my ear. The humiliation! After
that, the nervous tightening of throat and tongue whenever I attempted to
speak.
My schooling was misery. The other kids poked fun
and imitated me, the teachers just could not be bothered to wait, and ignored
me. The final humiliation was my inability to sing in tune, so I was pushed to
the back, and told to form the words but never to utter a sound. I have always
envied those who can sing – no stammer there. To this day I only let fly when
the vacuum cleaner is going. Soon that outer shell grew, and I became
unmindful, indifferent and even contemptuous of most of the human race. Another
‘lover’ was born. As children, my sister and I did not get on too well
together. Not until our teens did we become life-long friends.
After an illness, I was sent on my own to Great
Uncle Alfred and Great Auntie Louisa for a holiday. They lived in Chichester[15],
and had no children. A funny little cottage with a loo-shed at the bottom of
the garden and a cellar where Alfred used to make little bundles of firewood to
sell to the local ironmonger. In his charge of an afternoon, I learned to watch
and enjoy cricket. This interest in the game has never waned, but learning to
bowl over-arm under the instructions of my 11 year old grandson Jonathan in
Australia at the age of 66, was a little difficult.
In spite of my stammer, progress was made in my
education. At 13 years I went to Regents Park Central School, where additional
subjects such as French, Shorthand and Typing were taught.
My sister Sally, who was so clever with her hands,
went to a Trade School in Hammersmith to learn soft furnishing upholstery,
curtains, loose covers etc. She was also an excellent dressmaker – self-taught,
could sketch very well and (‘lucky girl’) had no stammer and such pretty blond
hair and blue eyes and a much more gentle disposition than mine. My father was
years ahead of his time, in that we had to have the best education possible,
learn a trade, so that we could always be independent, and not have to do other
peoples’ housework, like my mother. This trade earned my sister many openings,
and stood her in good stead always, especially when her first husband (Charles
Blundell) was killed during the war, and she was left with two little girls to
support.
At this continuation school, I came under the wing
of a very understanding headmaster. Only the grammar schools in those days took
pupils to Oxford, Cambridge or Matriculation, forerunners of General Certificate
of Education. He coached about six of us for the senior Oxford, and commanded
our total respect and affection. The teaching profession today is sadly lacking
such men, and the standard of education for school leavers is far below that of
my generation, in spite of ‘modern’ methods and expenditure of vast sums of
money.
Another milestone. My passes on my Oxford were
sufficiently high to get me a scholarship to the Senior School of Commerce at
the Regent Street Polytechnic, and pay my parents the sum of 5/- a week. This
does not sound much, but in those days wages were only between £2-£3 per week. My
father stepped in here, bless his heart, and literally forced me to attend
evening classes for speech training, to cure the stammer. These classes coupled
with the new school, where I was treated as a normal person instead of a half-wit,
and no-one knew of the impediment, I had to cope in a fascinating and
interesting new environment. Those classes changed the whole course of my life.
I lived in the real world instead of lonely daydreams.
Children growing up now in inner city areas face so
many problems that were non-existent in those ‘bad old days’. No racial
problems, a healthy respect for law and order. Although somewhat in awe of the
local ‘bobby’, we knew instinctively that he was the bloke to approach if lost
or in any difficulty whatever.
At one end of the street was a wide pavement space
and high walls. Here we played ball games, chasing games (very popular),
hopscotch, girls with dolls prams, ‘mothers and fathers’, boys, cricket and
football. It was our territory and we seldom mixed with the children of the
next little street before reaching the high wall of the railway. There was some
rivalry which mostly amounted to the calling of rude names. The poor little
devils outside the pub that waited and waited for parents were beyond the
‘pale’.
Gradually our horizons widened and we wandered
further afield. The stairs and long tunnels of the Marylebone Tube Station were
always good for a scamper - until we were chased out by the porters. The main
line terminus at Marylebone Station however was our mecca. The delivery wagons
in those days were horse drawn. Exploring Harewood Avenue, we first came to the
stables. How well I remember the warm hay and manure smell of those stables,
the huge shire horses, the loving care of their drivers. How could you feel
like that for the internal combustion engine?
Some drivers let us look and admire, and even pat
the horses head; some chased us off as soon as we peeped in the yard. Next door
were huge loading bays which could occupy our attention for half an hour or
more. Then the terminal itself was good for numerous diversions. The 23 bus
came in and out, and for 2d you could go all the way to Bond Street, and a
large taxi-rank.
By this time grandmother had helped my father buy a
taxi-cab, and he became a London cabby for the next 40 years. Earlier he had
found a job with Smiths of Cricklewood, the well-known makers of car
accessories, but a mishap with a lift and a Rolls Royce put pay to that. Opposite
the terminal was The Great Central Hotel, a very grand building, catering for
very grand folk. Adjoining was the Wharncliffe Rooms, where banquets and
various functions were held. Evenings we would sometimes stand outside (not of
course on the red carpet), and watch ladies in beautiful gowns, firs and
tiaras, gents in top hats and cloaks or resplendent military uniforms. Maybe we
gazed in awe at beings from another world, but we had no spiteful envy or
desire to grab what they had and demand a share.
Enough it was that in our free world we could work
towards the same end; and I have not done so bad, although formal functions of
that sort have never appealed to me. Yes, Marylebone Station – always busy
always something going on. The staff there got fed up with us sometimes, and
who can blame them, but compared to the thieves and vandals of the present time
we were little angels.
Regents Park was only 10 minutes walk away. Primrose
Hill, the Zoo, Hampstead Heath about 2½ miles. The Park had most things, lawns
with ‘do not walk on the grass’, a boating lake, beautifully kept flower beds,
football and cricket pitches, children’s playground and sand pit, in which we
were not allowed to play ‘dirty’ said my mother, the broad walk where we
searched for squirrels, and the inner and outer circle which housed the
Zoological Gardens and Bedford Ladies College. We gazed through iron railings
at the young ladies from another world. Little did I dream then that one of my
own daughters would swell their ranks, taking a special degree in biochemistry -
a subject not only totally unknown to me but also totally incomprehensible.
Fortunate we were. There was no media cramming the
calamities of the world down our throats morning, noon and night. Radio was in
its infancy, thrilling indeed to listen to Jack Payne’s dance band, Uncle Mack,
David and Toy Town.
Even so the difficult times of the twenties did not
completely pass us by. I remember the General Strike of 1926. My father could
not go to work to earn the rent as the strikers would have turned the cab over.
The Welsh miners sang and begged along Oxford Street, claiming to be
ex-servicemen which seemed to make it all the more poignant. “Unemployed from
Jarrow”. Harsh words bandied about at Speakers Corner. I remember hating the complacent
face of Mr Baldwin and his pipe. Anyone in work was thankful and held on to
their jobs. Money was scarce and I remember having to wear second hand clothes.
After my grandmother died we had a succession of
lodgers, some comical, some I heartily disliked. One old boy I often helped up
the stairs. He used to do ‘washing up’ at the Grand Central Hotel, and all the
remains in the bottom of the wine glasses were collected in a jug, which he
drank before coming back to his room. Small wonder he always slept in his
boots.
(Back to the Polytechnic) Life was changing. We
still had lodgers, but my father was an established taxi driver, except when
there was a concert at the Queens Hall, Albert Hall or the Promenade Concerts
(“The Proms”), when he would hide the cab somewhere, sneak in, and lose himself
in the world of music. He is the one who should have written his memoirs. The
stories he could have told us, of the famous and infamous people who rode in
the cab. His discussions with the conductors of the day – Malcolm Sergeant,
Adrian Boult, Thomas Beecham, etc.
My mother had a permanent job with some Americans
living in the flats overlooking Marble Arch. I still have some black Wedgewood
the lady of the house threw out, because the coffee pot was broken. After a
dinner party mother would bring home lots of tit-bits of strange and delicious
food left over. Also I still have some books that came from their library
including my first AA Milne.
Not so good to me at that time was having to wear
discarded clothing of a grandmother. The old dear was very good to us, and when
I passed Oxford she gave me a beautiful leather writing case. Not only are Lady
Bountifuls sneered at nowadays, but also our patriotic waving of the Union
Jack, our respect for law and order, and King and Country.
These clever young men from the Universities
ridicule and turn upside down all our cherished beliefs. Satire, kitchen sink
plays, violence, evils in all forms, degrading sex, religion, politics,
entertainment, marriage. Now, satire I enjoy immensely, maybe we did have our
heads in woolly clouds, and needed many reforms. It is all very well to destroy
something, if it is wrong, and if there is something better to take its place
(Oh yes. I read Bertrand Russell!).
What have we got is terrorism, near anarchy,
vandalism, crime of immense proportions, sex shops, moral decadence and broken
homes. We are moving towards Marxism and repression, the like of which was not
seen in our imperfect, muddled world of capitalism. The substitution of one master
for another ruled by the Trade Unions. The Tolpuddle Martyrs and the early
struggles of working men for a ‘fair go’ is inspiring reading. A systematic
clamour for more and more for doing less and less, has brought England to economic
ruin, while the Trade Unions bosses struggle for political power.
Who cares about the little man now? We buy goods
from Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Germany while our own people are unemployed. Who
with a grain of sense is going to invest in Britain with our industrial record
of strikes and malpractice over the last thirty years? Ah well, talking of
changing times has led me far astray, to a world 45 years or more beyond the
Regent Street ‘Poly’.
At the Poly, I’m still in the clouds on the
threshold of growing up, boy conscious and with the pangs of adolescence. Our
bath night in a tin tub in front of the kitchen fire had gone. We lined up at
the local baths at half price on a Saturday morning. A waiting room with long
wooden forms where chattering, noisy children pushed and shoved their way
forward to ablutions trying the patience of the bath ladies who turned on the
hot and cold outside the cubicle with a lever. The swimming baths were there
too. I learned to swim at an early age and still have a bronze medallion for
life saving. Fortunately I have never been called upon to exercise this
doubtful skill.
For some years my mother had always put away 7s/6d
per week for an annual trip to the coast. Our digs when we got there were
always miles away from the sea. It was a long trudge to the beach every day but
how we loved it; and how we cried when it was time to come home. Ramsgate,
Margate, Bognor, Shanklin, St Leonards and, later in my teens, Devonshire which
was paradise indeed. Both my parents were town people, but from earlier
ancestors I must have inherited a love of the countryside. Even Sunday School
outings to the wooded areas around London were heaven. Bluebell time at
Stanmore was within walking distance of the tram terminus. We often walked to
Hampstead Heath; we walked everywhere in those days. I preferred the
naturalness of the heath to the park. We always had a dog, from the time
grandmother bought my first puppy as a birthday present. Toby and Bill I
remember most. We walked miles and miles.
Saturday night was the highlight. Late shopping was
the rule, as before the days of refrigeration everything had to be sold off. In
Church Street, where all the stallholders bellowed in competition to dispose of
their stock, the stalls were lit by garish paraffin flares, and my mother would
go from one end to the other in search of the cheapest bargain. She may not
have had much education, I never knew her to read a decent book, but no one –
yes, no one - ever diddled her of a farthing. You don’t know what a farthing is
do you? A small coin[16]
that would buy a sticky fire-lighter, liquorice boot laces, gobstoppers or acid
drops.
At the Home and Colonial Stores in the Edgeware
Road the fish was auctioned, and we came home triumphant for our fried fish
supper. Even when we collected boyfriends, they too shared the weekly treat. We
took so much for granted.
The streets of London were comparatively safe. Even
the drunks at closing time were harmless enough. Crowds at football matches might
have been eloquent and excitable, but never vicious or destructive. When we
were out late at evening classes, the theatre or dances, it never occurred to
us to be scared. Nor do I remember ever being molested, as we blithely walked
what were fair distances home in the early hours. Mugging had not been
invented. Pickpockets there were of course, and the professional burglar, but
without the umbrella of the welfare state, poor people in those days were
fairly honest, in spite of their poverty.
My parents were great theatre-goers although it
meant queuing for the gallery and sitting on hard wooden benches. It was the
great heyday of the West End Theatres and they got to see the cream of our 20th
Century dramatists – George Bernard Shaw, Noel Coward, Terrance Rattigan, Galsworthy,
Priestley, Novello; the wealth of talent was enormous. I count myself lucky
having seen in the flesh so many great names - Sybil Thorndike, Edith Evans,
Marie Lohr, Ernest Milton, Laurance Olivier, Gus Elan, Harry Lauder, Tom Wall,
Ralph Lyn, Robertson Hare, Jack Buchanan, Stanley Lupino, Ralph Richardson - I
could go on forever. So many of the theatres are no more, including the
Metropolitan Music Hall, Edgeware Road, where I saw many old timers, including Nellie
Wallace and Wee Georgie Wood - the last remnants of variety where the rainbow
ends. The Old Vic was struggling with Lillian Bayliss, all the great names
passed through her stage door. My father used to take us, through dark and mean
streets from Waterloo Station to queue for the gallery. I must admit I found
Shakespeare a bit much in those days, but always enjoyed his birthday
celebration on the 23rd April where one act from half a dozen plays
was the order of the day. My father with great pride pointed out Miss Bayliss
in her box, but I am afraid I only saw a very insignificant little old lady. Having
recently read her biography, now I can only marvel.
Inherited from Archie, my grandfather who was an
avid reader, I was a bookworm from the time of ‘comic cuts’ and Weary Willie
and Tired Tim. I went from them to school stories of Betty Barton and Angela
Brazil to Jean Stratton Porter. From there to my favourites - Galsworthy’s
‘Forsythe Saga’ and Hugh Walpole’s ‘Herries’ series. I was enthralled with
Margaret Mitchell’s book ‘Gone with the Wind’ - ages and ages before the film
was made. For some reason I read lots of plays; can’t think why (I don’t think
I could do it now).
Finally the reading I still do, in between
whodunits and historical biographies. The modern novels of intimate sexual
antics, and descriptive violence, sordid squalor make me shudder, especially
four letter words, but I love a thumping good story where true love and virtue
always triumph over vice. The ending of George Orwell’s ‘1984’ left me shattered,
and miserable. We are nearly there (writing this in 1982), and big brother
looms ever nearer, in the shape of Trade Union bosses and militant tendency. Perhaps
I have at last come out of ‘cloud cuckoo land’. The world seems violent,
greedy, selfish, dishonest and heading for chaos. I will not be sorry to leave
it. They can keep their mod-cons and micro-chips, but I grieve for my
grandchildren. At what age do they stop being lovable, and become monsters.
As a young girl I dreamed of a career, travel, and
emancipation. I still believe in equality of the sexes in law and
opportunities, but women’s lib has a lot to answer for.
*****
It is now December 1984; over two years have passed
since my last sentence. The story of my life seems to have got lost among a lot
of personal impressions ancient and modern. How do you keep to the point when
unfolding a life story?
My years at the ‘Regent Poly’ were great. I joined
the cross-country running club, and rowed a skiff on Regents Park Lake. I
enjoyed the gym, but was never one for organised and competitive games. With Gladys
and Kathleen we explored the countryside at weekends. Went to matinees at the
West End cinemas to avoid German lessons. Before 1 o’clock it was only one
shilling. My sister was already working at a high-class furniture store at
Tottenham Court Road. Boyfriends were brought home and we began to enter the
realm of dances and parties. I still had to wear 2nd hand clothes
and envied my sister her own money.
My turn came and I got my first job at a clothing
wholesaler near Smithfield meat market. Boy! How you could smell the meat in
the summer! Typing letters, chasing up orders and being a general dogsbody. Good
experience, but not my cup of tea. From there to a Patent Agents Office
“Monolines” in High Holborn opposite Gamages. A funny old boy called Neroslavsky
and his two sons, George and Victor. The old boy tried to seduce me, and would
not believe I had not slept with anyone at 20 years of age. (A comical phrase –
there is no sleeping attached to it). From first fright, I treated it as a joke
and my innocence must have been a protective cloak. Looking back I was saved
from many ‘a fate worse than death’ by it. George was always pulling my leg and
marvelling that anyone could live with their head in the clouds. I was popular
with him as I remembered everything I typed, saving him referring to the files,
which he made a mess of anyway. Ideas come to us from would-be inventors. George
searched the patent Office records to see if it had been done before. If not, a
patent was applied for and Victor tried to flog same to some unsuspecting
manufacturer. I was in the middle of the three-cornered friction between the
old boy and his sons, so I moved again to some Greek ship-owners in the City.
An interesting change but I was still filing and
typing letters whereas my real interest lay in accounts. The offices were
modern and near the Baltic Exchange where shipping business was done. The City
of London was a fascinating place so full of history. The shipping world of
cargoes was new and exciting, especially when the survivors of a wrecked ship
landed on the office mat, very bedraggled and sinister looking. The Greeks were
not registered in Britain, therefore not subject to our laws. Consequently the
crew were the flotsam of foreign ports. We often saw the Masters and Officers,
a different story, all within the family so to speak, well to do and a very
varied bunch. The decline in British shipping was already there – 50 years ago,
undercutting by foreign shipping, us unable to compete. What a familiar story
over the next decades. However they brought in a young man for the accounts,
over my head. So I took umbrage at being kept to lick the stamps, and scoured
the Tuesday ‘Daily Telegraph’ office vacancy column.
During this time my social life was expanding. The
speech training classes were a godsend. So many different people, all
struggling with speech defects like me. Jeff and I were the only young ones. He
was on the ‘Daily Telegraph’ and some years later was found dead at his desk. Andrews
the businessman (I lunched with him once at the ‘Cheshire Cheese’, a famous old
London eating house immortalised by Dr Johnson, Boswell and Charles Dickens);
Antrobus a smart civil servant; old Neill, the borough surveyor of West Ham,
the perfect gentleman; and Barton, the telephone engineer, who had a master key
to all the installations depots in the country. He once took us round an
enormous exchange underneath Oxford Circus where all calls went through. What a
revelation to us mere users and complainers of the system. What price STD (Subscriber
Trunk Dialling) then and the micro-chip and what of the thousands of workers it
has replaced. Mrs Gittins, a very lively and witty elderly widow, working
herself to the bone to educate a young son. Wonder if he appreciated it. Perhaps
as in so many cases, her ambitions for him were uppermost.
We had outings and social evenings together. I
remember a ride in a handsome cab horse drawn around Piccadilly with Barton. We
were great friends and laughed a lot. Jeff and I too seemed set on a permanent
association, then WHAM out of the blue, Reg turned up. 55 years or so later
still at my side. How the Gods have smiled on us and we have done so little to
deserve it. During the speech training we learned relaxation, then to stand up
and talk for two minutes or so on any given subject. You can imagine how varied
they were. Many of my ideas were formulated at this time, and how grateful I
was for the help and friendship of these people, especially Miss Beatson, our
teacher, a lovely lady with such a sense of humour. Teaching deaf children was
her life’s work, and she was totally dedicated.
Meanwhile my pretty sister had collected a group of friends. I too
became involved and eventually we formed a club, with President, Secretary etc.
to organise our free time. Believe it or not it became Kuckoos Kamping Klub or
KKK. Farmers were friendly to youngsters in those days and we soon had three
outlets for summer camping. Just outside High Wycombe, Penn near Beaconsfield,
and Hertford. Beautiful country in those days. The lads built a trek cart for
the heavier things which we stored in the barn. Easter, being too cold for
camping, we would take a bungalow on Canvey Island. In the winter we went
dancing, roller skating and (best of all) hired a small hall off Marylebone
Road Saturday nights where we held tramp suppers, gave shows, dressed up,
meetings and discussions – ‘the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts’. What
wonderful days they were, no drink, no drugs, no smokes, not enough money. We
were pretty hard up. I’m sad for the youth of today, swamped in cotton wool
with mod-cons, consumer goods, and the welfare state and bored, bored, bored.
More personalities. The framework must be the
Hughes Bros. Their influence on the rules, atmosphere and
general standards of behaviour were paramount. Ernie the eldest was President. A
good deal older than the rest of us he had returned from a spell in Canada and
had a good job with Hoovers. He held onto some land in Canada for years,
dreaming of going back, living with that regret for a lifetime. Then Will[17]
the next brother. At 19 he was sent to Singapore on a rubber plantation, as the
Daddy of them all was a clever chemist in the rubber trade. That did not work
out, so he joined Ernie in Canada. What a contrast, it nearly killed him and
Ernie had to bring him home. Then Laurie, a clever engineer. Our lives have run
parallel, he still lives 15 minutes walk away and Reg my future husband was
next, he 18 years and myself 19 as far as I remember. As I write this I am now
70 years of age. Do I hear you say “senile and past it”. However, my transfer
of interest from Jeff and Bob was instantaneous, although at our first camp he
did throw a bucket of water over me, as I was complaining of being too hot. I
cannot recommend it as a guarantee of love at first sight. Ken was only about
12 years of age so did not feature much in those early years. The boys were all
clever engineers. The wives complained of being ‘nut and bolt’ widows.
From a fall out of a tree, Reg developed a tubercular knee. I think he
was about four years of age. Fortunately his father was doing well at the time,
and could afford a Harley Street specialist Dr. Jackson Clark. The local
hospital in Wembley wanted to amputate at the knee. X-rays were very new. Gran
Hughes kept the photos for years. Jackson Clark promised a cure, but said it
would take 10 years. It did! From an invalid carriage to an iron splint (a
handy weapon against inevitable bully boys), a convalescent home in
Broadstairs, all resulting in a late start at school at 11 years of age and two
odd sized legs.
He has naturally had a bit of a complex from this,
especially as his Mum being tired of overalls and oil spattered menfolk was
determined to have a white collar office clerk with clean hands – a status
symbol in those days. So he was sent to a commercial training college to learn
shorthand and typing. Talk about water off a ducks back!! From a good opening
with the British American Tobacco Company and a spell with an insurance broker
in the City at St Catharine Dock House, he was soon in a garage crawling
underneath cars. His father’s business failed and he developed cancer, maybe
from doing research into rubber tyres. Ernie and Will had had public school
educations, but Laurie was only half-way when things collapsed. Nothing left
for Reg and Ken. It was a hard and sad time for the family. I only met his
father once - then it was in the workshop at the end of the garden splattered
with oil. He was a very clever chemist and his genes worked through to my
middle daughter Janet. He died at 59 years.
Back to the ‘Kuckoos’. There was Bob, my boyfriend
at the time of joining the club, Harold and Connie the only married couple,
Charles Henry, known as ‘Bundle” at school, (my sister’s first husband), killed
in an air crash 1945. A superb athlete, a great extrovert and a basis to our
theatrical fun with Reg, Percy and Don. Who will forget Don? Game for anything,
a marvellous comedian and a good singer. Our own Eddie Cantor, a natural for
the entertainment world. After several years of good comradeship and fun he
disappeared from our ranks and no one ever knew what had happened. Pop as my
father was known to the group, being a London cab driver penetrated the East
End where he lived; but drew a blank. A constant visitor at our house he teased
my mother unmercifully and she loved it. Then handsome Eddie a musician and
also at school with Reg and Bundle, killed at the YMCA during the blitzkrieg on
Plymouth. He was in the navy.
The girls, myself and my sister, the three
Hannerman sisters, Francis who married Will, Elsie who married Laurie and
Jenny, Doris who married Percy; and then Stella who married Ernie. Sounds like
a marriage bureau, but at the beginning, except for Connie and Harold, we were
all single and fancy free. But it was inevitable that couples began to pair off
and lead separate lives as courting couples. Although it may seem unbelievable
to the present day generation, the segregation of the sexes was a natural
line-out to our generation. Separate tents for boys and girls, Connie and
Harold used to split up as well. I remember a bungalow on Canvey Island with
only one bedroom crowded with the girls. Too cold to camp out in the garden,
the boys stretched out in sleeping bags up in the roof. It was a mercy no one
came through the ceiling. I loved those camping days. Hard ground, smoky tea,
the unforgettable early mornings - I had never seen the dawn. Best of all, the
campfire in the evening when we sang and sang (me very quietly as I have no
voice and can’t keep in tune). ‘Home on the range’ was our theme song. I still
cannot hear it without a catch in the throat. We had a rota system for the many
chores, rough and ready, no camping mod-cons like sissies have nowadays. Perhaps
from this distance it has a rosy hue, but the fun and laughter is still with
me. I can remember the outrage my sister and I caused by wearing short shorts
down our street. What nonsense!! We were ‘damned to the primrose path’. This
makes me sceptical of the general condemnation of the clothes and hair-dos of
modern youngsters. Beneath the passing fashions they are the same insecure
adolescents trying to find their way in a rapidly changing world, conditioned
by their environment, television, declining moral standards - but still good,
bad and indifferent. Nice and nasty has nothing whatever to do with race,
colour or creed. Religion has much to answer for. Even as I write fanatical
Moslems are murdering Christian passengers on a highjacked plane to try to gain
the release of convicted terrorists in Kuwait.
Inevitably as we grew up and couples married, the
club had to go the way of all flesh. Those halcyon days could not last forever.
Life, jobs and circumstances intervened.
The eldest of the Hughes family was a girl, Rhoda. She worked in an
office in Wembley but had very poor health, probably induced by having five
brothers. Gran Hughes had a brother who went to the Boer War and stayed in
South Africa. Rhoda went there on a prolonged visit, found herself a job and
eventually married a Scot who was three years of age when his family moved from
Scotland to Pretoria, South Africa.
From the Patent Brokers, I moved to offices above a
garage at Hyde Park Corner. Two elderly, well to do, brothers came in and out. I
was the only staff. The garage was in a mews off Knightsbridge, by the
Alexandra Hotel, (bombed to the ground during the war) and leased from the Duke
of Westminster. Below was ‘Ginger’ the mechanic, Bill, jack of all trades, and
Old Titcombe who lived on the premises as foreman and caretaker, old and fat,
he sat on a box all day. Upstairs a reception area with telephone, three
offices, one for the brothers Law, Charles and John, mine where I reigned
supreme and the other just a lumber room with a rackety back staircase down to
the garage. The premises were so old. The garages had been stabling for horses
and carriages and the rooms above staff quarters. These now converted to lock
up garages with flats above that commanded a high rent for being old and quaint
and opposite the Park and Rotten Row.
Some of the tenants were famous or infamous. On
looking back there were many dubious activities going on, all above my head at
that time. Many famous names used the garage lock-ups - Basil Eyston a racing
driver, Lord Rothermere’s girlfriend with a large Pontiac, old Mr Carlisle from
Park Lane, with a gorgeous sit up and beg Rolls Royce. Valerie Hobson the film
star, etc., etc.. Petrol was sold in cans, no pumps. My job was to answer the
telephone, organise the chauffeurs, a very mixed bunch I can assure you, keep
all the accounts, deal with correspondence and send out bills. Also I read
about four books a week from Marylebone Public Library, part of the Town Hall. Ah,
that Town Hall, I remember it well. My youngest daughter, Sheila, was married there.
Ascending the steps to the impressive entrance, passing the stone lions on
guard, I felt somewhat guilty having sat astride them many times and played
hide and seek through the hallowed portals some years before.
In the draw of my desk too were bits of knitting
and odd jobs of needlework, not that I have ever shone in that direction. Now,
my sister was a natural at all kinds of needlework. Two of my girls have
inherited her gifts, the eldest, unfortunately for her, takes after me. I ate
my lunch in Hyde Park, and purchased the office tea and biscuits from Harrods. A
cushy job that lasted until the war when my secretarial skills were to
disappear from London Town forever.
It was to be five years before Reg and I were
married in 1938 and my sister also within six months to Bundle. To get round
family duties at Christmas, we collected all together and stayed at a hotels.
Hastings and Cliftonville are the two most memorable. Don was a riot as MC and
took over. Our modest theatricals came in very useful. We must have been a
tonic to the staid, more middle aged and respectable other visitors. They found
it incredible that Christmas morning we visited a Milk Bar, (the origin of the
modern coffee bar of today), and the elderly ladies were delighted to find holly
in their beds and cotton stitched to the sheet, the other end of which was
outside the bedroom door, to be gently pulled after they had retired. Laurie
and Elsie had Spanish costumes for a tango which always gained applause - a
handsome couple. Eddie gained boos and storms of abuse in his get up as Adolf
Hitler and Bundle as Tarzan in a little bit of tiger skin really was something.
The war clouds were gathering. At ‘The House of the
Two Stone Dogs’ in Hastings, we inadvertently landed among a gathering of left-wingers,
where the communist ‘Daily Worker’ was the only newspaper read, and Neville
Chamberlain’s name was mud. It was just after Munich. So who dressed as Neville
Chamberlain at the fancy dress ball? Don of course. There was nearly a riot,
but a fun and good humoured one. We parted good friends. It was a salutary
lesson for our narrow conservative souls.
Most of us were married by then. Reg and Ken
started up a small engineering workshop in Harrow. I used to take armatures to re-wind at the offices. The phone always
rang while I was counting the strands of wire in each slot. They were dipped in
shellac and baked in my little gas oven. I never was able to use that one for
cooking.
With my sister marrying as well, we felt we could
not desert Pop and Gem, (the kuckoos affectionate nick names for my parents),
in the slums of Marylebone Station, so we bought a new semi in Wembley in the suburbs
that were sprouting all around London in the thirties, converted it into two
flats, one for them on the ground floor and the upstairs for us when we
married. We bought kitchen cabinets that had been in a fire, rolls of second
hand carpet that had to be sewn together and fitted to cover the floors. We visited
auction sales for furniture. £30 that
flat cost us, but at that time it did represent ten weeks wages, and loving
toil. Not many couples spend their engagement days sitting on the floor sewing
bits of carpet together, scraping and painting burnt woodwork. The soft
furnishings were the best; all made by my clever sister. Bundle was better off
with a good job and they were having a house built to their own design just
outside Slough.
During this period too, Reg and I discovered our
love of quiet places, hills, woods, the lonely shores of Devon. We began ‘walking’
and have been walking ever since through the highways and byways of Britain. We
can still do about 10 miles a day at 70, but for how much longer, who knows? Holidays
at Dawlish are highlights - The Warren, Haldon Moor, Teignmouth (mmm, that
rough cider) and Pop trying to photograph a well known engine ‘George V’ as it
roared along the sea wall knocking the tripod flying. A steam-engine - an
object of wonder to my grandson. Little did we know that life was going to
change beyond recognition. Adolf Hitler aimed to be Master of Europe. I had
read ‘Mein Kamp’ - so dull. The quiet unsophisticated world we had known was
going up in smoke. I was 25 and we had been married 14 months.
We were the proud owners of an old Rover car bought
for £20, and as the news grew worse we volunteered to take Will’s wife and baby
son to friends on the Welsh border. Here at Oswestry we heard the fateful
speech of Neville Chamberlain in the bedroom of an invalid man who had been in
the 1914 lot. He burst into tears and, with much trepidation, Reg, Will and I
jumped into the car for home. Shall I ever forget it? We were very nearly the
only car travelling towards London. On the other side of the road, piled high
with belongings, were thousands of cars racing away from the capital. Even the
old car got the jim-jams. We were pouring almost as much oil as petrol into it.
However we made it; Will to his empty house, and us to our flat in Harrow. Reg
had to close the workshop, with nothing doing because of the uncertainty. People
did not even pay their bills. My job, too, that was keeping the flat going,
folded up as the garage at Hyde Park Corner was closed and empty. The birds had
flown to the wilds of Scotland. Reg looked for a job. The only one he found was
at High Wycombe 30 miles away. A new factory one built on a country road on the
edge of the beautiful beach woods of Bucks.
We drew our last £7 out of the bank and bought a
tandem bicycle. I, who had never ridden a bike in my life! But the car was a
right off and we needed to get home to our flat week-ends from miserable
lodgings near the factory. We could not afford the train fare.
The war years have been so well documented. Thousands
of children with labels on sent away, the courage of the people sleeping in the
underground railway system emerging at daybreak to find smoking ruins. I shall
never forget standing on the railway bridge in Wembley watching London burn. That
blazing red sky brought a cold numb horror. How resilient are the human race,
but what a pity that it needs war or severe adversity to bring out the best in
us. In times of peace and plenty we are greedy, selfish even idle, but war
brings out admirable qualities of courage, self sacrifice, generosity and a
community spirit. There was even a radio programme recently where inhabitants
of a small town in the Yorkshire looked back with nostalgia to the war years,
seeing a better world. Our health too, for adults, children and babies, was far
better on very small rations of food.
Reg settled well enough in the machine shop of this
beautifully situated factory, and soon found himself doing special work for the
Swiss technician. The factory was making optical instruments for the Navy and
Air Force. Jean-Maire the Swiss had been trained by Zeiss of Germany and was on
the Nazi black list, terrified in case they ever invaded. How we laughed at his
fears, cocky as ever. It was years until we knew what a close shave it had
been. Dad’s Army and all those pathetic farm carts, and hastily made barricades
across our country roads meant to deter those efficient panzer divisions of the
German Army – ludicrous! After some weeks I also got a job at the factory,
assembling gun sights for the Navy’s Aldis lamp. This I enjoyed, it was so
different to office work. Mixing with women for the first time was not easy -
catty and petty. It was my own fault, as I had not told my garage bosses that I
was married, so my wedding ring was tucked in an envelope in the bureau at the
Wembley flat. I was not used to wearing it, and in the upheaval completely
forgot about it. Meanwhile one of the girls Pat, whose husband had gone into
the Air Force offered us a room with use of the kitchen. This served its
purpose but when a small bungalow at Lane End, three miles from the factory
became available, we raised a mortgage and bought it moving, Gran Hughes,
brother Ken and ourselves into it. We sublet the Wembley flat to the milkman to
cover our share of the overheads. Ken also found a job at the factory.
Life was very uncertain. Call up for the armed
forces was done in age groups, and we had already decided to carry on until
Reg’s age group was called, then we would both go, he to join either Eddie in
the Navy or Bundle in the Air Force, and myself into either the WRNS or WAAF. It
was not to be. By the time Reg’s call up papers came, he was doing skilled work
in a reserved industry that was necessary at home, and I was prey to irrational
feminine impulses. My sister had a baby, Jill. Bundle and I waited together for
the birth. I remember him pacing the floor saying: “This is the proudest moment
of my life”. He would still be so proud of her, a lovely girl but alas she was
only four when he was killed. Two of my sisters-in-law had babies, so I thought
I wanted one. Looking back I cannot think of a more ridiculous and unsuitable
time to increase the birth rate - wartime, living on one wage packet, crowded
into a small bungalow with no mod-cons and the in-laws. However, reason has no
power when Mother Nature takes a hand. Controversy is fierce at the moment over
surrogate motherhood, test tube babies, and artificial insemination. Legal,
religious, medical, social experts, all screaming their views at one another. Who
is to judge such rights and wrongs? Certainly not me. I can only remember the
longing and the tears every time the monthly period turned up. Then low and
behold one month it did not. We were jubilant and I felt like ten men, working
until about eight months.
By this time my office training had leaked out, and
I was Secretary to the Manager of the Optical Department, also doing logarithms
for Jean-Maire. No computers then, pages of calculations for the curve of the
lens. When the new General Manager needed a secretary, I was offered the job. Although
very flattered, Wendy was well on the way by then, so my brilliant business
career was ending. Then the bungalow next door became empty. Our guardian angel
sure was a pet! Ken had a motor bike, so he and Reg raced around
Buckinghamshire trying to track down the landlady. Living space and
accommodation outside London was gold dust. But that dear old lady when she
knew I was expecting a baby let us rent it. We overlooked Andleton Common; at
the back a large garden and field with the best views of hills and woods we had
ever had. How I have always loved that part of the country, woods full of
primroses and bluebells, country pubs and a duck pond. Hills, wild raspberries
for jam and a gorgeous walk to Hambleton Weir on the upper reaches of the
Thames. Downhill all the way, though pushing the pram home again was uphill
work. The M40 motorway now goes through the lower part of Andleton Common. How
long before this ‘sceptred isle set in the silver sea’ is buried under
concrete?
No mod cons though. Old fashioned coal-range. I had
never handled such things, although my mother and grandmother had been familiar
with such. My grandmother refused to have anything to do with tin foods or new
fangled gas stoves. No mains water. There was a pump by the kitchen sink to
manhandle water from a well into a tank in the roof. This fed a lavatory and
cold tap over a tin bath and kitchen sink and ended up in a cesspool down the
garden. For hot water (a long story this) first you pumped the cold water into
the loft, then filled a bucket from the kitchen tap and carried it across the
kitchen to the farthest corner and poured it into a stone copper. Underneath
this was a hole for a fire, which was lit with paper, chopped wood and coal. When
the water was hot (in half hour or three hours according to the way of the
wind), you ladled it out again into the bath or sink. For the bath you made
sure of putting some cold water in first otherwise you burnt your bottom or
could not sit down.
Four rooms, and aso-called bathroom. Well that was
it – not much, but paradise to us. Ken was an electrician, bless his heart. By
scrounging flex and plugs and watching local ‘for sale’ notices I soon had a
small electric cooker, electric kettle, boiler for the nappies, and a curtain
to cover that black monstrosity. Also had a cement path outside to the coal shed
– heaven!
Arriving one day to find me struggling, my sister
turned tail back to High Wycombe. Where she found it I don’t know, but she
arrived back with an electric hot plate. Such a godsend, as the solid one on
top of the cooker took hours to get hot. Not good when a baby is yelling for
grub. I’ll never forget either that she travelled down from Blackpool, (where
Bundle in the Air Force was taking a training course), with young Jill not
quite two in a dark crowded train to be with me for a while when I came out of
the maternity hospital with Wendy.
What a placid happy and good little soul Wendy was.
At the clinic I used to boast to other mums, under an erroneous impression that
it was my training which made this baby business easy. How stupid can you be?
Janet came along 17 months afterwards and taught me
a lesson. As a baby she was happy and good, but oh boy!, when she got out of
the pram! Lively, mischievous, wilful (“I want what I want when I wants it!”)
attitude, and the bane of Wendy’s life. Chalk and cheese. Wendy was very, very
shy, slow of thought and action, with eye trouble, all of which made her a late
developer. Janet the opposite.
The war years were not too harsh in the country. We
kept chickens, so had plenty of eggs, grew our own vegetables, gooseberries,
apples, strawberries and redcurrants for jam in the garden. Extra rations and ‘off
ration goods’ could be obtained at the village shops, as we had many visitors
for a safe night’s sleep once the bombing of London began. They had to sleep on
the floor. Soap coupons I could give away as the rainwater from the well was so
soft; sweet coupons too, as that was not encouraged.
The little girls were so lucky. I can still see
them pushing their little wooden prams made by Dad, across the common and down
the garden path. The dolls were home-made from knitting patterns, stuffed with
old stockings cut up very small, but well loved for all that. Soon after Wendy
came, Reg volunteered for the armed forces. He did not relish answering the
question: “What did you do in the war Daddy?” and having to admit staying
behind in a reserved occupation. It could not have been more extraordinary, the
way fate intervened. During a short game of cricket (working hours were seven
days a week - finishing at 5 o’clock on a Sunday was like a half day), his
damaged knee was hit by a cricket ball. For a few days he was completely
immobilised at home. During this time a War Office official visited the factory
to find out what sort of work he was doing. The firm gave their views, his
never got an airing, so that was that – no go!
We used to hear the bombers from Naphill Bomber
Command flying over the bungalow at night, and watched with apprehension the
few scattered survivors limping home, but we did not know how bad things were. Eddie
had been killed. Then horror of horrors Bundle, too. I was in bed with a
jaundice attack, (known in the family as ‘Bobbie’s ’orrible turns’ – I was prey
to them until the menopause). The scene is etched on my memory, and that
telegram sent by Pop. Somehow I got over to Langley, near Slough, about 10
miles away. Jill was about four and Hazel about nine months, a fat little
sweetie crawling around a playpen. I don’t remember much more of that sad time,
only the coffin being lowered into the ground, the Air Force guard of honour
and at the coffee and sandwich session afterwards Jill asking: “Is it a party
Mummy?”, which still brings a lump to my throat.
My parents were a tower of strength. Pop taught Sally
to drive, and fitted a motor on to her sewing machine, and she took up her
trade of soft furnishing. She lived in a ‘well to do’ area of Slough and ‘Cayleys
of Windsor’ found her plenty of work. Bundle too had left her comfortably
provided for. The children kept her going and she faced the task bravely, but I
so well remember her saying: “You know Bob the only fun in having children is
sharing them with someone.” She did a good job - Jill and Hazel are loving,
devoted daughters and she is a very popular Gran.
*****
Taking up my pen again, it is July 1985.
This retirement lark seems to take up a great deal
of time, and trying to sit quietly and throw my mind back 40 years is
difficult, so much intervenes, including a visit to Australia to visit middle
daughter Janet, who emigrated with her family nearly 12 years ago, leaving such
a gap in our lives. But more of that when and if I ever get that far. I did
take her the first 19 typed pages of this tarradiddle, in case this clutter
gets lost in a future upheaval.
In our seventies now, the future can be very
uncertain to say the least. Janet reminded me of stories in the family I had
missed out, such as turning up first at the geriatric home (next to the Marylebone
Registry) by mistake, for our lunchtime wedding. The porter on the gate said,
“This is where you end up mate, the beginnings are next door.” Being Friday,
Reg had to go back to work in the afternoon, as his two weeks holiday did not
start until Saturday morning.
We had a supper party for family and friends in a
little restaurant at Alperton. Don brought a pet rabbit to console my mother
for my loss! She was horrified and refused to touch it. Laurie and Elsie took
it, as they were renowned for taking in birds with damaged wings, unusual pets
such as a monkey ‘Bimbo’, guinea pigs, and even minding a lion cub on occasion.
Pop took us to Waterloo Station for the boat train connecting with the midnight
ferry from Weymouth to Guernsey. So we spent our first night on desk, huddled
in the shelter of the lifeboat against the wind, landing at St Peter’s Port at
7:00am. All sensible folk who had been up all night had breakfast and a few
hours kip. Not us we were much too shy. An elderly couple also staying at the little
house had just purchased ‘Monopoly’, a game that remained popular for years. My
grandchildren still play. They were dying to try it out and pounced on us to
make a foursome, so it was 2:00am before we retired, hardly able to keep our
eyes open. What a laugh! What a wedding! I never did have much respect for the
conventions. There you are Jan, that’s the story I forgot, except that Dad also
got sunstroke. We returned to cope with the workshop, and plans for a life that
all went haywire with the onset of World War II.
The end of the war with Germany came. Wendy was
completely bewildered by the celebration party on the Common, but how happy
everyone was. I remember an old boy giving her 3d for being last in the
toddlers running race. Wendy never did hurry – what do you have to hurry for? Jan
was only 14 months. But what to do? Brother Ernie was fed up with factory life,
and he talked of taking over a small holiday camp place in Wales, with us, as
family holidays would be much in vogue with the return of all the troops. True
enough. Reg, too, hated factory life, and with the Unions getting more powerful
it was no place for him. The idea fell through as Ernie’s wife was
unco-operative, but the idea left us with a bee in our bonnet, culminating in
the purchase of a large old house at Westgate-on-Sea.
We were advised against it by my mother, Reg’s
mother enough of the rest of the family to fill a book. Mind you it was good
advice a lot of it, as we found to our cost. Not much money, two small
children, two years and three and a half years, no experience whatever, naïve
beyond belief, uncommercial, feeding and looking after 20/24 people per week
from May till October, food rationing, where every cup of tea had to be entered
on a form – all this and two pairs of hands. We must have been mad; it nearly
killed us.
Only those two dear little girls kept us sane with
their funny ways. The old house had a lovely long garden on to open fields, 24
fruit trees, chickens, an air raid shelter that the girls used for play. Very
neglected they must have been, but they had a happy hunting ground, even if I
never had time to wash their socks! We did two summers, always full but not
charging enough. Dead as a doornail in winter. Reg unable to get work, only six
letting bedrooms. The money would not go around. Still having to visit auction
sales for furniture and equipment. My sister, bless her heart, a war widow,
helped us so much. Her two girls and mine were always together, and got on so
well.
So on to ‘Kingsmead’, the real focus of our
subsequent family life. I cannot pass by without a lot of conflicting emotions even
now, as we live only 1½ miles away. A lovely Georgian House overlooking lawns
and flower beds, numerous paths to a sandy beach – St Mildred’s Bay. Front
drive and forecourt for a dozen cars, 17 bedrooms and usual offices, large
spacious rooms with typical period, ornamental doors, panelling, beautiful
mahogany staircase and open Adams fireplaces. Large garden enclosed by elm
trees and a high wall, and spacious cellars that served many purposes.
The estate agent was a persuasive salesman and we
were a couple of greenhorns. We found plenty wrong with the plumbing, much dry
rot and other lesser things, but bowed down with debt to the Bank, and with
brother Ernie and my sister, we soldiered on. There was no difficulty in
filling the house with families on holiday. I was lucky too with staff. Local
ladies born and bred in the area knew far more about the catering trade than I
did. Frankly I was terrified when Reg took it on. There was so much work to be
done. Luckily in those days, a comfortable bed, good food (my saving grace),
and pleasant surroundings were all people asked. Not like nowadays.
What can I say about the next 25 years? We led a
strange life, perhaps that is why our family unity is considered ‘odd’. Unless
you have lived in a little seaside town you cannot imagine the contrast between
summer and winter. “Eight months hard labour and four months solitary
confinement” as Reg often quoted. He did not really take to it. Coming from an
engineering family of five sons, he dreamed of having his own workshop, and
something more interesting. But we were well and truly lumbered with debts and
a young family to bring up. Sheer slavery!! As the house was not large enough
to manage by just overseeing staff, we had to do the lions’ share of the work
ourselves. The human race at close quarters, serving their meals, making their
beds is definitely not endearing. We did meet such a lot of nice people (in the
minority), who came year after year. We watched their families grow up along
with ours. The time came when their children started visiting with babies of
their own. This is when we considered it time to give up. We were lucky mostly
with staff. Reg was marvellous at keeping them happy and ensuring their loyalty
and best endeavours. I was easy enough to get on with (I think) and could work
with people, but was a dead loss at supervising or giving orders, which is why
cooking for 40/50 people seven days a week from May until middle of September
rested mainly on my shoulders - with much help of course.
The first few years were hard, really hard,
inexperienced as we were. Perhaps therein lies a reason for our success. Not
knowing any better, the 12 families we catered for every week, we welcomed and
entertained as an extension of our own family. Breakfast, even elevenses coffee
if the weather was bad, lunch, afternoon tea, four course dinner, tea and
biscuits at 10 o’clock in the lounge, and I forgot early morning tea as well. Cots,
high chairs, special meals for tiny ones, washing and ironing facilities, baby
sitting, a table tennis room, and games in the garden. Many of the staff stayed
for years, coming back each season - Frank, Mrs Mead, Mrs Rust and of course
Rocket (Mrs Rockliffe), my ‘right hand man’ in the evenings for 16 years. The
children loved her and squealed with delight as she chased them round the
kitchen with the mop or broom. Then Georgette, the French girl, who came as an
ordinary visitor one year then as a chambermaid for several more years, to
learn the language and became a friend of the family. Wendy and Janet had a
memorable holiday in Paris with her when in their teens. Years after, she came
on holiday again with husband Pierre, and two nearly grown up children.
Glad, my mother’s half sister helped the first
three years, ‘living-in’ the first year, (Reg and I slept in the cellar), and
then buying a little house in Westgate. Josie and Susan, her two girls,
constant playmates for my two. Josie, being that much older, came in for a lot
of responsibility. Then Glad remarried and went to live in Watford, moving
round over the years, Ramsgate, Folkestone. I still visit her in Deal, now 76
years old and nearly blind.
Wendy had just started school when we moved to
‘Kingsmead’. During the upheaval Janet developed a stammer which worried us a
great deal, thinking of my own unhappy experience. As the dust settled however
it disappeared, thank goodness. Apprehensive of Wendy’s entry into a council
school, we sent her to a nursery school, where she just sat and looked. She was
so very shy, and a squint aggravated this shyness.
So the years rolled by. Our lives cut into two
separate parts. The summer season was such hard work, the children left to run
a bit wild, but making many friends. “Who is coming next week we know Mummy.” Then
the winters, our road (Sea Road, Westgate) known as cemetery walk. But how we
looked forward to our family life, because it was so limited at times, and that
is why it meant so much.
As we shut the door on our last visitor at the end
of the season, we were jubilant. The children ran up and down the stairs
laughing and shouting, we danced in the hall, choosing which bedroom we wanted
to use, having been shut on the other side of the big swing door to the kitchen
quarters in cramped sleeping quarters for the summer. “Can we have tea on the
trolley, in front of the fire in the big lounge” - forbidden territory in the
season. A long parquet flooring strip there was used for dancing to a regular
radio programme of country and music hall tunes, called ‘Those were the days’. When
older, a real treat was to stay up and listen to Saturday night theatre. Something
Reg and I still do, in preference to the sickening violence or rubbish on
television.
Janet fretted when Wendy went to school. She wanted
to go too, but when her turn came, she wanted to stay at home. The educational
system was struggling immediately after the war, with large classes,
inexperienced teachers, and a new disregard for discipline. Wendy sat quiet as
a mouse in the back of Mr Bullock’s class for six months, before he discovered
she could read. Reg had taught her to read at home.
There was so much work to do on the house. It took
us years. Earning a bit in the summer, spending it on all the things needed in
the winter. Kitchen equipment, an antiquated old coke boiler to replace,
carpets, curtains for the huge windows. My sister did the main curtains,
beautifully professional. Auction sales for furniture, blankets, linen and
towels, crockery and cutlery. Decorating never ending. Reg, Glad and I also
went to cookery classes. That was a laugh!
After Christmas the money was always all gone, and
we lived on credit until the next season. The cash deposits on summer bookings
were a life-line. We learnt a never-to-be forgotten lesson that first year. At
the end of the summer it looked as though we had taken a lot of money, so
feeling we had earned it, Reg, my sister and I had seven days at Spiez in
Switzerland, while Glad looked after the family. We very nearly starved that
winter. End of February the bank said, ‘no more money’. I hardly dared face,
the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.
However Switzerland was like entry to paradise
after the austerity years of the war, and food rationing still severe. That
breakfast on Basle railway station, unbelievable! Patisserie full to
overflowing with fancy bread, rolls, cream cakes, gateaux, candies, chocolates
galore. Meals in the hotel that belonged to a different age and a different
time. The scenery too, the mountains and lakes, it was like a dream. Then bump,
back to reality.
Our previous holiday had been nearly ten years
earlier in July, and Hitler let all hell loose on Europe in September. We went
to the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, staying on a farm. Our first visit to
the ‘land of our fathers’. Very unwelsh in outlook those days, but with names
like Hughes and Roberts, we were not totally frowned on. Lovely hills, lovely
bays such as Rhossli Bay – three miles of sand with not a soul to be seen. The
farmer even went to Swansea market, 20 miles away to sell his produce and return
with groceries. Now it must be caravans, supermarkets and freezers. Ugh!
I wish we had kept a diary of sorts. We met so many
people of all shapes and sizes. Nice people, funny people, detestable people,
and ginger-haired little boys with freckles that we knew were trouble with a
capital ‘T’ from the word go. We kept a black list of folk we never wanted to
see again, and a standing joke in the kitchen was about “which table was going
to get the burnt bits this week?” Only once in all those years did Reg ask a
family to leave. Known by the rest of the visitors as the ‘Giles Family’
(cartoon characters of a particularly unpleasant nature, including the
belligerent grandmother). They packed up after several days and went without
paying. The rest of the folk bought bottles of champagne to celebrate their
departure, and an enjoyable continuation of their holiday.
Reg took up golf.
Sheila was born in No. 15 bedroom, cold and
draughty. It was the end of December 1950. Still struggling, still in debt, and
Glad moving away. What a silly time to have another baby!! But what fun and
pleasure she brought into the family. Just over an hour old, she squeaked at
the admiring Reg, Wendy and Janet. It was to set the new pattern to our family
life. The girls were delighted, Wendy 8½ years and Janet 7 years. Sheila was a
real live doll to them, our lives centred around her growing up, constant
interest and amusement for us all. I was so lucky in my waitress that year. Connie
was a Birmingham girl who had a baby boy about the same age, looked after by
her mother. Although never seen, ‘Connie’s Mum’ entered our lives. Her word was
law, her advice followed in all our minor crises. When things were a little
behind hand, we sent Connie to keep the guests quiet by talking about ‘her
Mum’. The girls loved her, and she was marvellous taking a lot of the care of
the family off my shoulders. I was somewhat concerned however when I found
Connie in the kitchen having her supper, Sheila on her knee being fed with
ginger beer and chips at eight months old. Looking at Sheila today at nearly 35
years, it did her no harm at all.
Happy uneventful years lost in the mist of time. My sister married
again after a lonely six years. Jack arrived, and in due course so did Peter,
Julie and Sally, constant summer visitors as the years rolled by. Our prospects
gradually improved; we bought a car, the girls went to a convent school near
Canterbury, as the secondary school in Westgate had such a very bad name. Janet
got the 11 plus, as the scholarships were so called, and went to the grammar
school in Canterbury ‘Simon Langton’, named after a very early Archbishop. Wendy
stayed at the convent until nearly 17, having added shorthand and typing to her
3 ‘O’ levels.
Christmases while the children were young were
great times. My sister and I took it in turns. ‘Kingsmead’ was a lovely place
for Christmas parties. We sat up until 1-2:00am making up the stockings or
‘pillow cases’ for eight children, then the little devils were chasing all over
the house by 4:00am. The large kitchen and public rooms were so spacious, if
sometimes a little chilly! No gas central heating then. Cold winds off the sea
straight from the North Pole, but nothing could damp our enthusiasm -
decorating the house, making mince pies, candies, toffees, biscuits, cakes,
Christmas pudding. We rolled up the dining room carpet, put old socks on our
feet and slid up and down on the parquet floor of the large dining room to make
it suitable for dancing. We hid parcels all over the house, and put a large
Christmas tree in the large bay window of the dining room. Jack, my sister’s
second husband, was a very generous man and the family always arrived loaded up
with goodies galore and a second turkey.
In the early years there was another new baby up to
three, Pop and Granny always, and also Uncle Laurie and Auntie Elsie. Having no
family of their own, our family Christmas was really something for them. They
were both so good with children. His train set was set up and enjoyed by all -
if the children could get near it!! Finally in desperation they kept pinching bits
and setting up a rival layout in the corner of the lounge. Laurie and Elsie
were always good for theatricals and dressing up, ad lib pantomimes and good
sports. I remember them one year arriving in their little blue car, Laurie
dressed as Father Christmas with balloons tied on all around the open car, us
all on the balcony outside No. 1 bedroom cheering madly. We played ring-a-roses
on the beach, had table tennis tournaments, hide and seek and so many silly
games. Boxing Day evening Jack usually took us out to dinner at one of the
surrounding hotels, leaving a lot of high-jinks and midnight feasts at
‘Kingsmead’.
Jack and Sally owned some grand properties in the Slough, Windsor
area, when his building business was doing well. ‘Brockenhurst’ with the long
rhododendron drive, tennis courts, beautiful garden set in the beach woods,
gardener’s cottage, glasshouse with peaches, and paddocks. The rooms were
beautifully proportioned with panelling and a lovely staircase. This was a
jewel, gracious living of an almost bygone age, sold afterwards for building,
another small step towards the concrete jungle with behaviour to match. Mill
House Farm was wonderful when the children were into pony riding. I remember
one year, Jack’s young beef cattle got out and destroyed the Colonel’s garden. Lakeside
Drive, Sandlea and Foston - all these remain in my memory like pictures in a
dream. Enjoyable times, they sped away so quickly. Children growing into
teenagers, wanting to do their own thing. Boyfriends and marriage; the natural
breaking up of the old order that has to come. But how lucky we were to have
such memories. We sit on the sidelines now watching the next generation keeping
the spirit going. What comfort there is in continuity, in this rapidly changing
world of violence and bitterness.
Holidays. In the early years we went to stay with
my sister or my mother. When Sheila was a baby we bought an old car, a Wolseley
18hp coach built saloon. The 1934 MG two seater we had during the war had to go
when Janet was born and we needed every penny for our move from the Chilterns
to Westgate. Suddenly when Sheila was six years, Janet and Wendy 12 and 13½
years, I realised how quickly the years were flying, and if we did not get in
some good family holidays, the birds would have flown the nest.
Our first venture was Spain, Costa Brave before it
was spoilt – 1956. I answered an advert in the ‘Sunday Times’ for a furnished
bungalow complete with two maids at Tamariu.
We loaded up the Austin A70, what a good car it
was; why oh why can’t we make them like that now? Mrs Rust our much-loved
waitress for a good many years, came as well with her husband. Four adults,
three children, passports and AA documents, and the kitchen sink, we embarked
on the great adventure via the car ferry to Calais. The foreign package tour
was unknown in those days, so we really felt like explorers. Except for Mr Rust,
we all enjoyed the little French hotels and strange food. Poor chap. Take away his
beer, fish and chips, and he was lost. I remember picnics by the wayside,
mosquito bites, long straight roads lined with Poplars, quaint French towns and
villages.
One hotel was taken from a pantomime where Sheila
giggled and said she felt like Goldilocks in the three bears’ cottage. The
Pyrenees, dusty roads lined with olive and cork trees into Catalonia. In spite
of the language difficulty we got on well with Anita and Anna Marie, the
Spanish maids. The bungalow was built on the hillside overlooking the sandy bay
and rocky cliffs. The nearest little town was Palafrugell where the peasants
still brought their produce to set up along the roadway for sale. I wonder what
it is like now?
Gerona, a city of impressive buildings in the
Moorish style. San Feliu at carnival time, gay with flowers but an open sewer
opening up on the beach. Reg was somewhat appalled by the flimsy construction
of the houses, water tanks on the roof, and electric cables just slung here,
there and everywhere in careless abandon. Unfortunately we did not know but
tennis balls had found resting places down the drain holes on the terrace. Unimportant
until it rained, and oh boy did it rain! The ground was dry and rock hard so
the water gushed down the hillside. Sheila, only six years old slept on a lilo
bed on the floor. In the morning she was floating in about 4 to 6 inches of
water. Mr Rust being in the building trade soon paddled to find the cause. The
floors were lovely stone mosaics and hey presto by removing the tennis balls
the water drained away. A memorable holiday indeed, in spite of the ardent
attentions from the Spaniard in the local sweet shop.
Then followed visits to the Lake District and
Wales. We all loved climbing and walking. Such celebration when Graham
telephoned the hotel at Ambleside with his first successful medical exam
results. Amusement when Tony Piper a boyfriend of Wendy’s called at the Royal
Hotel at Llangollen, to enquire for us: “Do you mean the man with all the
children?” asked the hall porter - rare things indeed at the ‘Royal’ on
Deeside.
One year we took the girls to Spiez by road across
France back to the ‘Hotel des Alpes”’ where we and my sister spent such a
memorable time just after the war. The same proprietors, older like us, with
that professional, friendly attitude of the Swiss hoteliers, second to none. Two
things I remember most of that holiday, those dreadful loos at Neuchatel when
we were desperate, and chasing all over Switzerland in search of chairlifts for
Sheila’s benefit.
The early package tour idea gave us the chance of
skiing holidays. The first time to Leysin on the French/Swiss border. Such a
wonderful holiday, including New Year, especially for teenagers who lived on
the coast with plenty of sea and sand, mountains were so different. The second
and last time was in 1963 at the end of a very severe English winter. Friends
thought us mad to go in pursuit of more snow and ice. What a wonderful memory. To
Saas Fee, we all went, in spite of a typhoid scare at Zermatt - the five of us,
Graham and Tony Piper, Laurie and Elsie, my sister’s two girls Jill and Hazel,
and last but not least, Jill’s husband John. Except me, they all went to ski,
limbering up exercises in the village centre then nursery slopes, then more
adventurous up the ski lift to greater heights. No cars allowed in the village,
only sledges – marvellous.
I remember myself loaded with all the jackets and
the movie camera at the lower level, with instructions from Reg to film him in
action. He came by so fast, and disappeared over a high ledge into a mountain
of snow, I was too petrified to do anything, so that marvel was lost to
posterity. The night life was such fun, dancing and singing – Hazel and John
doing the cha-cha; I will not forget. It has an aura of fairyland now.
The other great necessary project was living space.
The girls were growing up, and we were all too tightly packed in during the
summer. The hotel premises were not designed for a private section to be
possible, although we had a private bathroom and sitting room built on at the
back when Sheila was a baby. Reg bought a plot of land in a small road, just
behind ‘Kingsmead’, and designed a chalet bungalow. In the winter of 1959/60 we
got to work. First to clear the site of old apple trees and brambles. Reg at the
top of one tree attaching a rope thereto, Janet on the other end. She
threatened to pull hard, bend the tree, let go suddenly then hey presto –
Reggie sputnik launched into space. We kept Sheila out of the way until the
contract was signed otherwise the old dragon might have changed her mind about
selling us the land – pretty fussy she was. Mrs Rust and I digging trenches, to
the amazement of the Council Building Inspector. We bought a second hand cement
mixer and named it ‘Mary Ann’. One weekend the girls and us moved 7,000 bricks
into position round the site. A freelance bricklayer and builder Mr Smith
(would you believe it), did the skilled work, Reg and I the labouring. My best
friends crossed the road to avoid recognition when I travelled through the
small shopping centre to the garage for another can of petrol, more sustenance
for ‘Mary Ann’. Can’t blame them, I must have looked a sight in my old boots,
trousers etc., all bespattered with sand and cement, but I loved it and never
was one to care a tinker’s cuss for the approbation of my fellow human beings. I
can still remember after 25 years - 18 shovels of sand, seven shovels of cement
and enough buckets of water to make a crawling, slurpy splodge to be tipped
into a wheelbarrow and guided round the site to where Reg was working. I
learned to be careful as if the wheelbarrow was too heavy, it tipped me up
instead of the other way round. Somewhere there is a little photo album
recording our progress. How exciting it was but what hard work. I have since
stopped criticising layabouts on building sites for standing about drinking
loads of tea.
Ground floor. Entrance hall with large mirror, staircase. Large l-shaped lounge,
with stone mock fireplace and seating the entire length of the wall with tree
jungle type wallpaper, door to patio and garden. Jan’s piano and black box
gramophone that rarely stopped. Bathroom and two bedrooms, ours and Sheila’s. The
sunken bath caused trouble at first. Tea leaves from the kitchen next door came
up the plug hole. Kitchen with archway to dining alcove, also with door to
patio.
First Floor. Two bedrooms under the eaves, Wendy’s and Janet’s. Square landing
with cupboards under the eaves, in fact there were cupboards under the eaves
everywhere to the annoyance of the miserable old plasterer who grumbled it was
like a ‘b… rabbit warren’. Also cloak room with washbasin, toilet and bidet.
Outside
A garage you could drive right through to back garden so that the current white
Jaguar with tiger skin covers could be washed from the kitchen doorway. Tiger
skin? Ostentatious? Imitations of course, Jan loved them. A white gate with a
wiggly path to the front door and white ranch fencing. I hate straight paths. At
the back a paved patio, with swinging hammock (we bought this before we had
anything to sit on in the lounge, except the floor), fair sized garden and
poplar trees at the end. Happy days!
We have often passed it since, still looks nice,
but someone has chopped down Sheila’s large tree where the thrushes nested
every year, and half ways up between the branches was her ‘nature table’. Funny
how people like stark bare surroundings to houses. I love secret places, old
wood trees, bushes and camouflage. We called it ‘Sea Whiff’ but I still think
of it as the gingerbread house from Hansel and Gretel.
Our life there, spent between ‘Kingsmead’ in the
summer and ‘Sea Whiff’ in the winter was all too short. Graham’s parents went
to Australia for three years. His Father was RAF and was posted to Woomera, his
mother and sister lived in Australia. Graham then spent most of his time with
us, especially when Ma Pellat threw him out from the vicarage where he was
billeted. He and Janet were studying for university. Wendy was working in a
solicitor’s office in Margate but they all helped out in the summer, as waiter,
waitresses, chambermaids and stand-in kitchen staff.
Saturday mornings still dominate my dreams. Reg saw
to the dining room and lunch for the incoming visitors. The girls and I with
the current chambermaid, (Veronica Lake/so called), Rose, Ruby, Mrs Glading,
Glad, Mrs Bunch, Ada, etc., etc. tackled the bedrooms. Piles of dirty laundry,
moving cots and children’s beds about. Clean sheets, towels, toilets,
bathrooms, landing, stairs - all to be finished by midday when the hordes
descended on us. When young, our greatest trial was Sheila who constantly
jumped on the middle of a bed where we were putting the clean sheets. Then the
folding and counting, ready for collection soon after lunch by the laundryman.
It was at Mr Moore’s dancing school that Janet and
Graham met, 14 years of age. From then he became an integral part of the
family. The years of the Birchington Junior Drama Group were great, run by Mr
and Mrs Burley. Mr Burley was a well-known artist in this area, and the scenery
backdrops were so professional. The youngsters made their own costumes and
props with professional help. For a few years they carried off all the honours
in the Kent Drama Festivals. At Chatham House Grammar School in Ramsgate,
Graham took most of the leading roles in the school play. The most memorable
for me was ‘Candida’ by Bernard Shaw.
Time marches on. Graham won through to be a medical
student at Kings College Hospital in London and Janet went to Bedford College
in Regents Park. I shall never forget our last Sunday evening walk, one of our
favourites, Palm Bay around the coast to the to the Captain Digby. Graham and
Janet excited at the prospects ahead, myself subdued and overawed by the
certain knowledge that we had reached the parting of the ways, the end of an
era and that life would never be the same again. The youngsters flying the
nest, childhood over, and the inevitable breakup of our close family life. In
the morning, we loaded up the car to take Graham to his Hall of Residence, and
Janet to a bedsitter at Swiss College. On a snow and ice covered road we had a
puncture near Eltham. Luckily near a garage, so we sat drinking coffee in a
cafe while the necessary was done. Delivering Graham was not such a wrench, his
parents were in Australia, but leaving our beloved Jan alone in that large,
cold unfriendly room, her face at the window as the car pulled away is still
something I prefer not to re-live. Dear Jan, silly Mum! Knowing it is the
natural order of things, even not wanting things any different does not make
the parting any easier.
We visited London a lot that first winter, meeting
Jan in Regents Park, scene of my childhood. Then a bedsitter became vacant in
the same house as Jan. Wendy was now working in London, having left the
solicitor’s office in Margate, and taken a refresher course at Pittman’s
College. She now had a job with an insurance company in the City, travelling
daily to and from London daily was no fun, so it seemed a good idea for Wendy
to join Jan at Swiss Cottage. They came home weekends quite a lot, but Sheila
was the one that suffered. The bungalow, once the centre of noise, bustle and
constant activity, was as silent as the grave. Reg and I, numb and miserable
trying to adjust. Sheila, too, moving from the convent school to Dane Court School,
Margate. I had no idea how different it was for her, and how much she had to
cope with, in addition to a silent and different home environment.
Graham and Jan have now been married 20 years and
they too are beginning to face the break-up of their family. We remember and
sympathise but can do naught to soften the blow.
University holidays are long. Jan and Sheila still
worked in the hotel during the summer holidays. Graham took jobs as postman,
garage attendant, barman, etc. Reg did buy a flat in SE London for Wendy and
Jan to share, but it did not work out too well and Graham and Jan decided to
get married. Reg thought it premature as Jan had not yet taken her finals, and
Graham had several more years to do before qualifying as a doctor. However her
voice on the telephone that evening was so thrilled and excited. Although my
heart sank a little, I could no nothing else but reassure her with
congratulations. Years afterwards I became aware of the pressures on university
students. Miles from home, many of them, on their ‘tod’ for the first time - drugs,
sex, alcohol, smoking, left wing politics, etc. How difficult to go against the
stream. My sister’s youngsters and mine survived the onslaught, but I have seen
the heartbreak in many families, including brother Ernie’s.
So the stage was set for the final curtain, as our
life gradually changed. So many memories, so many people – Mr and Mrs Hopper
who every year made friends of the children on the beach, while not forgetting
Kimi the dog. Mr and Mrs Hobbs and Susan who came every year, and how the girls
looked forward to their visits. We still keep in touch. I had a letter only
recently with the family news and special delight at having heard from
Australia. Mr and Mrs Davis, Ann and John (or was it Stephen), one of the
nicest regulars it was our pleasure to meet. He was a big noise in the GPO. The
Lamberts, and those lovely photos we still have that he took as a professional
photographer. That entertaining lot Jones, Davis and Cridge, who came every
year at the same tine to have fun together. Jones’ son David with the heart
shaped face of an angel and the temperament of an arch fiend. Murray’s Mum. That
yellow and brown jumper with the stripes going the wrong way for her figure. The
sole topic at the breakfast table every morning was whether Murray ‘had been’. The
poor little fellow had his own toilet seat which went with him everywhere. A
couple from Herne Bay bitterly quarrelsome, and fighting for the attention and
affection of a two year old child, who was distraught and unbalanced by the
tug-of-war. The whole house, myself included, were ready to lynch them by the
end of the week. Thank goodness it was only a week, and they never came again. How
cruel and selfish can you get?
The glamorous Mrs Fox and her three sons. Mr Fox
was handsome and very popular, but some years later we heard he had committed
suicide. Such a smashing family. How sad. Then the Steeds and Parkers, firm
friends, spending their holidays with us until the children grew up to other
things. Jerry Parker continued our association all through the changes at
‘Kingsmead’. Angela and Jeremy growing up and marrying. They have continued to
visit even after our retirement, with Christmas cards up to this very year. Jerry
was a very amiable and successful business man, pure gold. He had many problems
with Jean his wife, Angela and Jeremy, tackling them with great compassion. Jean
died a while ago and he has married again. If anyone deserved a break, he does,
and I can only hope he now has a settled and happy relationship.
The Bardsley’s, a Fleet Street man on the “Sporting
Life” - Jimmy was dragged to me to confess about a broken window in the
playroom. “You didn’t mean to do it, did you Jimmy?” His honest answer I shall
not forget, “Well, I did hit it with a cricket bat”. His sister Judy came in
the later years, with her own children. Then Mr Cook, an ex-sergeant major, who
was very popular because of his organised games in the back garden. I must
admit to my chagrin that Sheila did hit his dear little Mary on the head, also
with a cricket bat. Whatever provoked this unusual action, I never found out.
My household linen supplier Mr Collier and his
family. Daughter Ann was chosen one year to be the beauty queen’s attendant at
the annual carnival week. What excitement the annual carnival caused. The whole
house assembled on the balcony to cheer the carnival procession, sports,
competitions, etc. - Sheila winning a prize once as a cornflake packet with
free gift. All disappeared, gone forever, with the Punch and Judy show, the
concert party at the pavilion and the band on the promenade.
Our few years at ‘Sea Whiff’ were great. We had a
private hidey-hole. The girls had their own rooms, no longer in cramped
quarters at the mercy of summer visitors. Reg and I had an escape route in
summer, and during the winter ‘Kingsmead’ was closed, and we all had our own
‘home sweet home’ for the first time since ‘Inglewood’ overlooking the common
at Lane End during the war.
When Graham and Janet went to university and Wendy
moved to London as well, it became too large and too expensive for our
requirements. The government also had one of its periodic credit squeezes, so
the bank called for repayment of a large overdraft. So ‘Sea Whiff’ was sold and
back to ‘Kingsmead’ we went. We did one more season and Reg, with building
assistance here and there, started the formidable task of turning the premises
into flats. The master flat, first floor front, was for ourselves. This took
several years, and we handled a reducing number of summer visitors as the work
progressed, eventually to alter our source of income to the letting of holiday
flats. More funny people in and out.
Graham and Jan’s wedding. I think it was 1964 or
’65. I forget. They have a smashing movie tape, so we have re-lived the
auspicious occasion. His parents were back from Australia, so we had the
traditional affair. Reception at a large roadhouse, known as ‘Chez Laurie’,
photos, speeches, the lot. Jan made her own white brocade wedding dress. She is
clever with her needle, something not inherited from me. They had a flat near
the hospital, furnished mostly from the Blackheath flat. It all worked out
quite well as she obtained her degree in Biochemistry (presented by the Queen
Mother at the Albert Hall) and then joined the staff at Kings College Hospital
in the Path Lab. She somewhat scandalised the ‘uppercrust’ of the hospital
staff, by sitting in the canteen with the medical students. Not done, you
know!! She was quite a VIP. Graham too passed his finals, and joined the
hospital staff. This meant they were able to live in a hospital flat. A strange
flat as the kitchen opened on to the bedroom, the living room, a long way away
down a dark passage, but convenient to their respective jobs.
After the wedding, with Sheila and Wendy, we had a
holiday in Ireland – the one and only time, before the ongoing 200 year old
troubles flared up again. What has religion ever done for the human race except
to divide it into separate camps of bigotry, hatred, inhumanity, violence,
repression, etc., etc? Crimes of the very worst kind have been perpetrated
throughout history in the name of one religion or another. ‘God so loved the
world’, etc. – if that is love, give me old fashioned hate.
However back to the holiday. We motored across the
widest part of Britain from Westgate to Fishguard. Left the car there and
boarded the ferry. Dinner on board was tranquil, the little port on the Welsh
coast peaceful and enchanting. Little did we know!! Being Friday evening, by
midnight the last train from London had arrived full of Irish workers going
home for the weekend. The world is full of Irish jokes, but this experience was
no joke, especially the absence of a good night’s sleep. In the bunk below me
was one adult and four children. The stairways, corridors, and every available
space was crammed with noisy, restless, belligerent human beings - no emphasis
on the word ’human’. The public rooms had to be seen to be believed – knee deep
in Guinness bottles.
The ‘Emerald Isle’, so aptly named, was truly
lovely. At Rosslare we collected our hire car, and motored across Southern
Ireland. So many magic names: Waterford, Cork and finally Killarney. The small
villages were poverty stricken and mucky. Elderly women in the old fashioned
black of peasants, spat at us now and again - a perpetuation of the past hatreds
between Irish and English. How ridiculous! Killarney Hotel however was
charming, although the village itself, is mostly owned by Germans (so we were
told). The lake, and surrounding scenery, were beautiful beyond description. Waitresses
with lovely Irish eyes, mostly smiling, and a huge bluff commissionaire, who
insisted we took a ride in a ‘jaunty car’, a small horse drawn vehicle. Sheila
obtained a signed menu card by the Dave Clark Five, a current pop group staying
at the hotel. Reg went fishing on the lake with a very knowing fishy Irish
tourist catcher and we explored Muckross Park. The romantic illusion of Irish
songs are legendary world-wide, but I was disappointed in the reality of those
famous places, especially the ‘Rose of Tralee’. Tralee was very drab and
unromantic, but the Isle of Kerry, Inch Sands where I found my first wild
pansies, the mountains and coastal scenery were so beautiful, empty, peaceful
and so uncommercialised. But John McCormak’s rendering of those Irish ballads
will always be magic for me. We have never been back – the ‘troubles’ 400 years
old have flared up again, and now in November 1986 are still going on. Insane,
damaging hatred perpetuated by vindictiveness and intolerance. Life is so
short; is it worth it?
Back to ‘Kingsmead’ where the re-arrangements went
on. Good-bye to ‘Sea Whiff’, it was good while it lasted. Wendy shared a flat
with office colleagues. Poor Sheila was left to share with us a home life
suddenly bereft of turmoil, laughter and activity with the ‘black box’ in
attendance. She went from the convent to Dane Court School at Broadstairs,
truly thrown into the deep end. I certainly did not realise how different the
schools were and how she had to adjust. No wonder her life became more outside
the home.
The first part of the conversion of ‘Kingsmead’
began with a flat for ourselves, along the first floor front. The best for
views across St Mildred’s Bay, cliff top gardens and the coast round to
Margate. We glazed in the balcony. Such a view, such a time waster, looking out
across the sea in its very varying moods. Adjoining was a sitting room and
small No. 2 bedroom converted to a kitchen. How Jonathan as a toddler used to
love running round and round, through the kitchen, across the balcony, into the
sitting room, and through an archway back into the kitchen. We only had two
bedrooms, a smart green and black bathroom, and large square hall, not
forgetting our individual central heating system. The winds rushed down the
North Sea from the Arctic to lash against the front of the house.
With the smaller number of bedrooms available we
carried on for another summer, and restarted the work the following winter. A
small flat at the back had been promised to Bert and Kate, Reg’s cousins. We
hoped they would act as caretakers as Bert was useful as maintenance man. Unfortunately
Bert died of cancer before they could move in, but we felt compelled to finish
the flat for Kate, a rather formidable lady. I felt quite scared of her at
first. The flat encompassed our lovely large hotel sitting room with French
doors to the garden. However we converted a large ground floor bedroom into a
lounge for the reducing number of guests, but it was not the same. So the work
continued and we had six holiday flats, and no more hotel guests. The end of an
era!
Meantime Graham passed his finals and continued to
work at King’s College Hospital. Jan too a VIP in the Path Lab. Then along came
Jonathan, three weeks early. Jan had only just left her post, a few nappies and
vests only purchased the week before. A very inconvenient flat, difficult time
for them. Jan kept her job for a time, leaving the baby in a pram under her
window by the porter’s lodge. I still laugh when I think of her embarrassment
when changing a nappy in the pathology laboratory, and in walked Professor Gray
with a VIP on a conducted tour of the hospital.
Her grief over baby Brown dying of jaundice because
the machine had erred. My tender-hearted daughter was not suited to such
happenings. How she hated at college having to stun frogs by bashing them on
the bench.
Graham and Jan then bought a little terrace house
in East Dulwich, which was quite attractive. But coping with a house, journeys
to and from hospital, baby and a job was very difficult and taxing especially
for Jan; but she was able to find a good baby minder. That lovely dark wavy
hair Joe had, just like Graham’s mother Eve, but Jan had it all cut off because
someone called him a girl. Heavens above! You should see the male hairstyles of
today. Boys have more curly permed hair and long, grotty styles than the girls.
Graham was and is dedicated to his career and a very different cup of tea to
Reg. They needed Jan’s wages as hospital pay was pretty poor in those days, and
the hours long. I remember Graham doing 90 hours a week for £600 a year.
During this time Wendy came back to Westgate to
live. She had had enough of London, and the last straw was being attacked with
a milk bottle coming back to the flat from the cinema one evening. It was nice
having her home again. She had to share with Sheila, but it was a large
bedroom. We bought a ‘Mini’ between us, and she set about learning to drive, as
Hill House Hospital where she had obtained a job in the office, was over
Manston way and public transport almost non-existent. She soon passed her test.
Meanwhile Sheila struggled with ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels.
She was very unlucky, as her school was scheduled to go ‘comprehensive’ - the
first in our area. A fancy idea of the Labour Government to enforce a more
equal system of education. As if one human being has ever been equal to another
from that first yell on leaving the womb. Many of our fine old grammar schools,
with hundreds of years of history behind them, were done away with, or changed.
All schools became co-educational. Twenty years on, the system by and large is
an acknowledged failure, educational standards abysmal. From the poverty of the
twenties and thirties I had a better education. However back to Sheila, the
best teachers left and the pupils were left to struggle on in a changing and
discordant atmosphere. She did manage seven ‘O’ levels and one ‘A’ level but it
was not enough to go to college.
In 1968 I think it was, we cashed our premium bonds
and made a long awaited journey to South Africa to see Reg’s sister. Just
before the war she had gone for a visit to Gran Hughes’ only brother. He fought
in the Boer War, then stayed there. Rhoda found herself a job, met Tommy and
married late in life. He was a Scot, but his family went to South Africa in
1903. The old man’s Scottish accent, (Tommy’s father), was as broad as ever. He
lived with Rhoda and Tommy, blind at 90 years of age, cantankerous as they
come. No wonder Tommy, a real nice person, drank too much South African brandy.
The old man was fascinating to talk to, as he had witnessed the growth of
Pretoria and South Africa. He bought land in the famous Church Street, five
miles long, lined with jacaranda. We were lucky enough to see it in all its
glory; a sight never to be forgotten.
After much medical treatment, Rhoda at 40 years of
age gave birth to ‘little Tommy’. The miracle baby (so described by her doctor).
Joy knew no bounds, but at seven years of age, when out with his grandfather, he
was somehow run over by a small tradesman’s truck. Rhoda sat in the local
hospital for two hours and the boy died in her arms. Such grief I can hardly
bear to think about it. But it was to happen again in different circumstances
to my own daughter later in Australia. Rhoda and Tommy never really got over
it. They visited England, stayed with us at Kingsmead. With little Tommy’s
savings she bought dolls and presents for the two girls. Tommy helped with
maintenance work. He was a carpenter by trade and there was plenty to do in
those early days. Rhoda lived in a dazed world of her own, never quite with us.
She again had medical treatment to try to have another baby, a desperate
tortured soul, but nature knows what she is doing better than we do. It was not
to be, and the adoption societies were wise enough to say ‘no’. That visit was
the last time we had seen them until 1968, about 19 years later.
We had a wonderful holiday. Highlights were a visit
to the Kruger National Park and a flight to Cape Town. The Kruger National Park
was a game reserve as large as Wales about 400 miles from Pretoria. Contrary
to our zoos, the animals were free roaming and we had to remain protected
inside the car. In certain areas there were tall stockade enclosures, which
were bolted and barred at night. Inside was guest accommodation, rondavels,
round thatched native huts, motel type accommodation, shops, restaurant,
swimming pool etc. Central barbeque cooking areas maintained by natives; a huge
kettle always on the boil for tea and coffee. It was great fun, barbeques were
right outside our experience at that time, and very eerie listening to the
hyenas howling and animal calls so close during the night. After a fascinating
few days we drove out of the park along Crocodile River to a hotel on the
Mozambique border owned by a friend of Tommy’s. Lovely cool tiled lounge hall,
such a relief from the tropical sun. We walked to the border post. Portuguese
East Africa then, so peaceful, so quiet almost unmanned, we did not see a soul.
How different it all is today, the conflict and turmoil in Africa. A wonderful,
wonderful holiday. Those mischievous monkeys climbing all over the car... Tommy’s
warning “For God’s sake keep the windows closed.” Reg’s favourites – those
beautiful gentle giraffes. I bought a small stuffed one in Adderly Street, Cape
Town and he still looks out of the landing window of our retirement home in
Kent. Also a carved wooden crocodile about 12” long crawls up the lounge wall
to this day. That came from Pretoriaskop Stockade Village.
While Tommy’s family had a big ‘do’ for his
father’s 90th birthday, we flew to Cape Town for a few days. They
were a large family, but not very united. No one had much time for the old man,
(not that I blame them). One brother from Durban had not spoken to his father
for 35 years because of a quarrel. Rhoda and Tommy were well and truly
lumbered. All they talked of was “little Tommy” and his endearing ways, and
what they were going to do when Grandpa ‘popped off’. I remember saying to Reg:
“that old devil will see them both off.” How true. A few years later Rhoda died
of a brain haemorrhage, dear Tommy, soon after, of grief and the brandy bottle.
With no one left to torment the old man faded out. We had a few letters from
the family. Rhoda had left us the hand painted Japanese porcelain tea set.
In Cape Town we met up with Jackie, brother Ken’s
daughter. She had been born with ‘itchy feet’. About two years younger than
Janet, she looked very much like Sheila. After various jobs here, like Rhoda,
she upped and went to Pretoria, stayed with Rhoda and Tommy for a while. Here
again that cantankerous old man spoiled the relationship and Jackie got a job
with a newspaper in Cape Town. We caught up with her at the YWCA. Cape Town is
majestic and lovely. Table Mountain, the Lions Head, Camps Bay, unbelievable
white sand and a turquoise sea, fringed with palm trees. We booked into our
hotel had our dinner and chatted to a group of medical students, one of which
was coming to England for a course at Kings College Hospital where Graham was
then working. Afterwards anxious to look at Cape Town, we left the hotel for an
evening stroll. It was very deserted, and I must admit we got some very curious
looks from groups of coloured folk. When we returned the hotel manager was ‘doing
his nut’. White people never go walking after dark, only door to door in cars. It
was our first experience of the fear that divides South Africa, and the trouble
brewing into a confrontation that today (November 1986), is being fanned by
extremists on both sides.
Jackie’s boyfriend David took us on several
excursions, including a drive up Table Mountain to look down on the lights of
Cape Town, a fantastic sight. We had lunch at his Mother’s house on the Sunday.
Memorable indeed was a trip to the tip of the Cape of Good Hope where the
Indian Ocean meets the Atlantic, if my geography is not at fault. Jackie and
David married and still live in Cape Town with their two adopted children. His
grandfather did leave David a sum of money on condition he spent it on a trip
to England. We had an enjoyable reunion at ‘Kingsmead’, and Ken and Flo made
one short trip to Cape Town several years ago before he retired.
*****
It is now July 1987.
Retirement goes quickly and pleasantly. Trips to
Australia and holidays with the family are recorded elsewhere, and this epistle
has been much neglected for a time.
The distant past seems easier to remember, our last
years at ‘Kingsmead’ hazy and muddled.
The next important event must be Wendy’s wedding. Through
Kate in the ground floor flat she met Jim Stokes, radio operator on Shell
tankers in the Far East. His family had lived next door to Kate for years, and
he usually visited her when on leave. Thus Wendy became a sailor’s wife. His
parents lived near Hastings so Jim bought a very nice little house at St
Leonards. So my eldest daughter and my half of the mini flew the nest. The
reception was at ‘Kingsmead’, two trainee waiters failed to turn up, causing
chaos for me. Wendy looked lovely in Jan’s wedding dress. My sister and all her
family were there, most of our family and lots of strangers from Jim’s family. That’s
all I remember, as the two waiters not turning up made things hectic for me.
Wendy’s decision to marry Jim caused me a lot of
misgivings. She was so gentle, so inexperienced as far as boyfriends were
concerned so unworldly in fact, in the nicest possible way, a real “old
fashioned gal”. My ideas of sailors did not match up with my daughter. However
I kept my thoughts to myself and worried a lot. She seemed happy enough. She
had a lonely time those first years. Her in-laws although quite close kept very
much to themselves. She worked for a secretarial bureau in Hastings and had
some interesting jobs - correspondence for Reverend Mother at a local convent. She
always asked for Wendy (so easy to know why). Holiday duty at a jam factory,
put her off jam for life, wrought iron gates, and cosmetic factory in
Eastbourne. Her subsequent heart breaking worries belong later on. We visited
her often and she had her car to get home whenever she wanted.
Meanwhile Reg had become involved with the local
council’s decision to lease out the cafes along the seafront. The hotel was now
in flats, so apart from maintenance he was a free agent, so together with a
golfing friend and ex councillor, they took over two cafes, one in St Mildred’s
Bay and one in West Bay which Reg was to take over on a three year lease.
Here begins a totally new experience for us. I must
say I enjoyed most of it. You were there on the promenade, overlooking the
beach, actually a living part of the holiday scene. For over 25 years I had
been confined to the kitchen of the hotel. Reg was always good with employed
labour, and we had an assortment of those. It was all or nothing. Bad weather
we just sat and looked at each other, then the sun came out and it was so hot
and hectic, it was exhausting trying to cope. The washing up!!! Plastic throwaways
were unthinkable to us. Not enough buns, sandwiches, ice-cream, etc.. We made
friends with all the locals and sunbathing layabouts.
Sheila was leaving school and Wendy still at home,
so we had a week in Majorca prior to Sheila looking for a job. We stayed at a
large hotel full of Jersey hoteliers about three miles from Palma. It was different
and enjoyable, not so commercialised as now, but even so I remember being
staggered by fish and chips and cup of char being sold by outcasts from
Blackpool. Palma was very intriguing and ornate in a Spanish way. I also
remember landing at Manston in thick fog, and freezing temperatures about
2:00am. Were we glad to find terra firma....
It must have been the previous year when the four
of us went to Scotland. A long drive to Carbridge, seven miles from Aviemore,
the skiing centre. I feel I have never seen enough of Scotland, each visit only
whets the appetite, although the weather can be diabolical, thank goodness or
it could have become like Spain. We did the usual things, lovely walks, driving
along Loch Ness looking for the monster, Inverness and some golf for Reg. The
girls went to a disco at Aviemore Sports Centre where Sheila was disgusted at
the teenagers getting so drunk. Such a pity, funny way to enjoy yourself! So
many of our younger and older folk are turning to alcohol and/or drugs. What an
indictment on our so civilised society with such a high standard of living with
all the mod cons, useless absolutely useless when there is no contentment in
the heart and nothing to strive for. I have always been so grateful that all
three girls have been and still are very abstemious when it comes to alcohol,
but able to enjoy it in convivial company.
One evening we shall never forget, several
musicians were at the hotel, and the proprietor played the violin. He closes
down the decorous little cocktail bar in the lounge at the proper hour. Then we
were invited to the back of the hotel where music and singing began in earnest,
accompanied of course by drinks after hours, in spite of the fact that the
police station was opposite. Such a great thing, almost made it legal, the
policeman himself via the back door of course joined in. We Sassenachs enjoyed
it immensely, but felt shamed in being unable to play an instrument or even
sign with conviction. So the owner delegated Wendy and Sheila to serve the
drinks, so that he could concentrate on his violin. One chap began to recite
Shakespeare with enthusiasm, although his wife confided in me sadly that when
he gets as far as Shakespeare it is time to take him home and put him to bed. I
must admit that at breakfast the next morning, the proprietor looked much the
worse for wear, and at dinner the grouse was so tough. Up to now we have never
had an evening quite like it.
Sheila had a yen for the fashion trade and obtained
a job with a department store, Peter Robinson at Oxford Circus. It opened her
eyes quite a bit to the devious thieving habits of the human race. She was able
to live with Jan and Graham, and also had a boyfriend Nigel. We liked him well
enough and he fitted in well with the family, but my heart ached for Sheila, he
brought her so much unhappiness. The women folk in our family are a faithful
lot. The affair was so one sided, and dragged on for some time. Even now I
can’t bear to think of the misery she went through. When little you can comfort
and reassure your own through many ups and downs, but there comes a time when
you can only stand by helpless even to reach through the fog of unhappiness
that surrounds them. When young the hurts go deep. All three girls have had
much more unhappiness than ever I had, but never have they come running home
with their troubles or deserted their posts, but battled on which is rare these
days.
So there we were just Reg and I left, and a café
plus a few holiday flats, and two small blocks of unfurnished flats. Have I told
you about those? I don’t think so. Such long lapses of time between writing
these memoirs that I can’t remember where I am. Not surprising!! And to keep
reading through my squiggly handwriting gets tedious. Heaven knows how it will
be for anyone else having a go.
Must have been about 1960, when having built the
bungalow, and the girls growing up and leading their own lives, we began to
think about giving up the hotel. Being self-employed we had no pension to look
forward to apart from the state one. The idea of carrying it on without the
girls was not attractive at all. We had to provide an alternative income for
our old age. Belonging to a hard working and fiercely independent generation,
expecting the government or the taxpayer to finance our old age was completely
alien and abhorrent to our way of thinking. How things have changed. Folk now
sit on their backsides and expect the welfare state to cosset them from the
cradle to the grave.
However back to the problem. Taking a leaf out of
the book of a fellow golfing builder, Reg purchased a large empty house, or
rather the Bank did and with the help of Smith the bricklayer and plumber,
Charlie Attwood the electrician and me, he converted ‘The Firs’ into seven
flats. I remember scrapping seven layers of tough old-fashioned wallpaper off
one room. We worked hard in those days, but felt sad at dumping the Aga cooker,
a lovely oak inglenook fireplace, also filling in the impressive front door and
entrance hall. The plans were passed by the Council. Reg should have been an
architect, he has good ideas.
These flats were finally let at about £2/week to
elderly ladies. The rents paid off the bank loan for the conversion and we
carried on at ‘Kingsmead’ for our income, looking forward to the day when the
loan was paid off and the rents were ‘ours’. Like most greenhorns, we had
overlooked the cost of maintenance and the taxman, so when Jan and Wendy went
to London, Reg bought another one ‘Langhorn’. This was made into six flats, but
the work was done by Mr Triggs, instead of us, with help. We kept these flats,
some of them for the next 20 years. Owing to changes in the housing market when
the old dears died off, we were able to sell the flats leasehold instead of
renting. Reg was not cut out to be a landlord, too soft hearted. The last two
were sold only last year (1986). Our property owning days are over and we have
just the small private house in Birchington now.
The café years were an interesting diversion. Meanwhile
a vacancy occurred for a local Doctor in Birchington. Graham, Jan and Jonathan
were having a difficult time, and although general practice had never been of
interest to Graham, for the sake of the family he took the job. At first he did
an obstetrics course at Margate Hospital, and was given a hospital flat. In
this area, general practice is either babies or old people, not really Graham’s
cup of tea at all. In 1970, he was thrown into the deep end at the local
surgery in Birchington and for the meantime they lived in the large top floor
flat at ‘Kingsmead’.
This was a happy time for me. Jan so close, Jo-jo
as he called himself toddling around and new baby Roderick. Let’s forget the
panic over jaundice and remember it was the summer of playing with
grandchildren. After nearly a year Graham was able to buy a lovely old house in
Birchington ‘Old Gates’. Large wrought iron gates, profusions of hydrangeas and
roses, panelled walls, the lovely blue room with a large bay window overlooking
the garden, a study for Graham. Here they settled for about four years only
just over a mile away. Happy times for us, calling in for a coffee, cup of tea
or a spot of lunch when passing, always made welcome, and a joy to see two
little boys growing up and sharing in their lives. Wendy too took a temporary
job as receptionist at Graham’s surgery, living back at home while Jim was
away.
Yes, now we come to Wendy, those heartbreaking
events and difficulties of the next few years, tackled by a lion-hearted girl. I
don’t suppose her children will ever realise how lucky they were to have a Mum
like her. Jim away from home for a large part of the year, she stood alone,
except for us. I like to think we helped. Jim’s parents had a little general
village shop, such a tie, so unable to help.
When she became pregnant, joy knew no bounds; they
were both delighted. As a child when anyone asked her what she wanted to be
when she grew up, her simple answer was: “I want to be a mum”. Well she had the
full implications of that thrown at her. We spent much time together; she was
happy and fit. Jim managed to get leave at that time and our Susie was born. During
a telephone conversation, the first chill crept down my spine: “Mum she has got
a temper, just screams after each feed.” Small babies do not scream with
temper. At just nine weeks old, a cancerous kidney was diagnosed, an immediate
operation vital. No one expected her to survive. Wendy was advised to have
another baby as soon as possible. On the day of the operation Kate, naturally
still involved very much, drove me to St Leonards. Jim’s face as he opened the
door still haunts me. Wendy and I enveloped in a fog of grief. I can only
marvel at that strong spark of life in that tiny baby, that survived being
opened up like a little rabbit and the bad kidney removed, then weeks in
hospital, handled constantly by different nurses and doctors. None of the so
necessary security of the baby and mother relationship. Small wonder that now,
at 15 years, she is very introverted and unable to open up or confide, but a
lovely girl, very pretty.
The following year is a blur of visits, sleepless
nights, hospital visits, and Wendy pregnant again. Jim, of course, had to
return to sea. Reg was very concerned and understanding being left on his own
so much, while I journeyed to and fro from Westgate to Hastings; especially the
last couple of months before Michael’s birth, when I could not leave her only
for short spells while a friend stayed.
Dear Mike turned up the day prior to Janet’s
birthday. Conceived in sorrow, born with a double squint, and this only the
beginning. Two babies within a year, Susie needing constant attention, strange
attacks of difficult breathing and glazed eyes. All praise to St Helen’s
Hospital, Hastings and the local social worker they assured her the attacks
would get less as she grew. The social worker was a marvellous friend and
advisor, a coloured lady of whom I cannot speak too highly. When I thanked her
once for her kindness to Wendy, she said, “Thanks, I mostly only get disdain
for my colour, kicks and criticism. I don’t remember anyone ever saying ‘thank
you’.”
How did Wendy cope? Sleepless nights with one or
the other. I visited Hastings a lot, and driving a large estate car she brought
the two babies to Westgate. No 15 bedroom was always made up for her. Here
Susie had one of her attacks, and terrified I called in my doctor, Dr Lown. He
turned pale when I gave the baby’s history. Wendy was well known to all the
local medics having worked at Hill House Hospital. But miracles do happen and
she survived against all the odds. , Jim’s parents had moved away, 60 miles
separated us, it was getting costly and difficult especially in the summer, so
Jim did the wisest thing and bought a little house near Canterbury. They are
still there. But of course by moving day he was away at sea so guess who did
all the packing up and moving. Luckily Wendy and babes could stay at
‘Kingsmead’ until the Sturry house was got ready.
Now the next bombshell! That pine kitchen at ‘Old
Gates’ is starkly etched in my mind coupled with Graham’s announcement that
they were emigrating to Australia, and would we join them. Was this to soften
the blow, as blow it was. A gorgeous baby girl Harriett had been born the
previous year. The close affinity between her and Graham was unbelievable from
the start. The pressure of general practice was very heavy on Graham and the
attitude of the other partners did not help. His heart was not in it, and
Barbara Castle’s harassment of the medical profession during the term of a
labour government proved the last straw. He and Janet had spent a holiday in
Australia in 1965 while his parents were there. His grandparents lived in
Sydney, several uncles and numerous cousins were strewn around that large
continent. An advert in ‘The Lancet’ for a trainee child psychiatrist at
Adelaide Children’s Hospital proved irresistible. He applied for the post and
got it; much to his surprise I think. We could only stagger under the blow,
force a smile and wish them luck. There was no question of us going. I could
not desert Wendy and Sheila was young and having a difficult time. Graham’s
mother had died of cancer while they were living at ‘Kingsmead’ in 1970. A
shattering blow for him, as they were very close, so he had no one to leave
that he cared about. Those lonely, lonely years for Jan, the heartache, I don’t
honestly think Graham had any idea of how she felt. Our family ties are so
close. My three sons-in-law find it difficult to understand.
Living so near we were involved in all the packing
up and selling of the house. For a few weeks they lived with us after the
furniture had set sail. Bitter sweet memories. Lovely, lovely Harriet, just
over a year old, giving Reg an indignant piece of her mind when he picked up
the newspaper or a book instead of attending to her. She was just learning to
walk, but used his index finger as a prop while she explored the house and
garden. Graham was enthusiastic and excited, at last a new career, a new
beginning in the field of medicine he had always wanted. We were desolate. Sheila
cried all night. On our return from the station after seeing them off, there
was the empty button box, the buttons all over the floor; Harriet had been
playing with them. The stiff upper lip crumbled and we all dissolved into tears
overwhelmed by a crushing sense of loss. I remember Kate taking over and making
the inevitable answer to a crisis – a cup of tea. Reg and I were numb, and
behaved like zombies for weeks. Dear Sheila, how wonderful, thoughtful and
caring she was in our misery. She came home every weekend, organised a Christmas
day with my sister, a Christmas Eve dinner at a Greek restaurant in London,
even a Christmas stocking for each of us on Christmas morning. To my
everlasting shame I did not think about one for her. They had flown away on 16
December.
This transcription of Louisa Hughes’ manuscript was
keyed in pretty much as written.
[1] 1853 according to the 1901
UK Census
[2] Marylebone Lodge, 4, Devonshire Place North
[3] 21st January, 1915,
‘Malignant Disease Transverse Colon’
[4] 1928, ‘Pneumonia’
[5] An East India Merchant (tea
Planter).
[6] Fanny Stearn, 8th
child of John Stearn and Sara Sophia (neé Smith).
[7] Clara Stearn, the 9th
of nine children, ran the New Market Inn, 27
Brighton Road, Ashcombe, Lewes, Brighton
[9] 28th June, 1913, Hampstead
Registry Office
[12] ?? Burnett Creek in southeast Victoria, near
Deptford, starts at an elevation of 487m and ends at an elevation of 203m
merging with Merrijig Creek.
[13] Through
Mary Ann Roberts there is a strong link to Australia through her mother’s side
- the Payne Family (convicts sent to NSW for stealing a sheep).
[16] A quarter of one penny or half a halfpenny
[17] Will was
actually the oldest (14.10.1904), Ernie (24.7.1906), Laurie (28.6.1911), Reg (8.7.1915), Ken (1920)
